


Driftwood

by nightsofreylo



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bioluminescence, Breeding, Double Penetration, F/M, Frottage, Impregnation, Interspecies Relationship(s), Loss of Virginity, Mating, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, MerMay, Nesting, Not Beta Read, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, Oral Knotting, Oral Sex, Pregnancy, Sailor!Rey, Sea-God!Kylo, Tentacle Sex, Weird Biology, tags will be updated as chapters are added, there are a lot of a/b/o tropes without actually being an a/b/o fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-05-16 16:40:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightsofreylo/pseuds/nightsofreylo
Summary: At the bottom of the pool is a mosaic of smooth, oval rocks. White stones form the crude shape of a man’s torso...but below the waist he is not human. The lower half of the mosaic is composed of black rocks, which separate into eight beautiful, curling lines.Rey has to stop herself from reaching into the pool to trace each one of them with her fingers.





	1. Chapter 1

The ocean is merciless.

It tosses the _Raddus_ around like the ship is is driftwood. A bright flash of lightning illuminates a wave as tall as a mountain, rising up beyond the the starboard bow, and Rey knows that the ship will not survive.

The roar of the storm is so great that she cannot hear the screams or the groaning of dying men. She stumbles towards one of the bodies. Finn. Something has struck him. There is a ghastly wound to his skull, blood running down the side of his head. His eyes are open but unseeing.

The wave crashes down on the _Raddus_ , and she swallows salt. There is a creak and a gut-wrenching crash, louder and more terrible than the felling of a tree.

It is the sound of the main mast breaking.

She has to get to the captain. If Holdo is dead, they are all lost. Rey struggles to her feet. She is soaked to the bone and the wind chills her clean through as she fights against it. There is a great swell, the boat rises higher and higher, and her whole world suddenly tilts on an axis.

Then there is nothing but the unforgiving ocean, suspending her in its frigid depths. She fights, kicking and writhing, trying to twist her body to find the surface. But there is no moon, no light to guide her way.

The water is inside her lungs.

The water is inside her veins.

The water is inside her heart.

 

* * *

 

She is being carried through the depths of the ocean. Tendrils curl around her shoulders and thighs like vines, warm when everything else is icy cold.

When she wakes, she is naked in a dark cave.

 

* * *

 

Rey feels as though she has lived her entire life on the island, when the truth is that it has only been a matter of weeks since the _Raddus_ was shipwrecked.

She is not alone here.

The island is a monastery. There are nuns who do not speak, their faces gray and sallow, like the weather on most days. Rey has a strong feeling that they disapprove of her. Perhaps it was because she’d come to them naked and dripping wet, like a water nymph in the stories. A wild, untamed thing. But they take pity on her, giving her one of the empty stone huts, simple clothing, and salty, cooked fish. She offends them by asking for men’s trousers, but she can’t very well explore the island in a skirt. When they refuse, she makes a pair herself, reveling in their horror at how tightly the grey breeches cling to her legs.

The island is a rough, jagged thing. It rises up out of the ocean like a sharp tooth. There are rather round birds that dart through the skies and plunge into the water. They make nests in the craggy cliffs. There are stone steps leading every which way around the island.

At the top one of the winding staircases, there is an old fisherman who lives in a beehive-shaped hut of his own. Rey sees him going about his daily routine - he milks the shaggy mountain goats that roam near the shoreline, and climbs a terrifying cliff to spear fish with a great wooden spike. He delivers most of his wares to the nuns. When Rey asks them who he is, they point to the shallow water in a cove on the southernmost side of the island. Beneath the still surface, Rey can see the ghostly skeleton of a small skiff.

So he’s trapped here, just like her. Shipwrecked.

Rey seeks him out, thinking that perhaps they can help one another. The island is mostly grass and moss and lichen, but she has seen a single tree between two jagged slopes. If they could cut it down and rig up a small craft…

But she quickly discovers that the fisherman, Luke, is a hard man, with a salt-gray beard and storm-blue eyes.

“Go away,” he tells her. At first he is merely annoyed with her. But when she pesters him, begging and pleading with him to help her escape, he grows angry. “I will never leave this island. I came here to die.”

“But if you came here...then you must know where we are,” Rey protests, daring to hope, even though the _Raddus_ had sailed for days on the open seas before it was conquered by the storm. “How far we are from the mainland.”

“What did you think was going to happen here?” the old man scoffs, as though her hope adds fuel to his fury. “That I’d help you build a raft, and we’d conquer the ocean together, and you’d paddle your way back home?”

The only home she has ever known is at the bottom of the ocean. And if she has to live the rest of her life on this island eating rice and fish with no one but silent nuns and this bitter old man for company, she thinks she would rather be dead.

“You’re going to die here,” Luke tells her. “Same as me.”

 

* * *

 

Rey mourns for her friends, knowing in her heart that they are gone, their bodies lost to the sea. She wishes that she could have buried them properly. The crew of the _Raddus_ was her family.

She has never been the type to pray before, but when the nuns fold their hands in prayer in the morning and in the evening, she joins them. It doesn’t make her feel much better, but she knows that Finn was devout. She wants him to have peace and no one else is alive to pray for him.

At night, she cries alone in her hut, thinking that peace is something she will never have.

When exhaustion finally claims her, she dreams that she is suspended in dark saltwater, unable to breathe or move. She feels those heavy tendrils around her, against her...but they do not drag her deeper into the water.

They carry her towards the surface.

 

* * *

 

“I think someone carried me,” she whispers to herself, alone in her hut. There are marks on the walls: fifty-nine perfect lines, scratched there as a reminder that she will not stay here forever. “I think someone carried me out of the water.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rey knows that there are some things in this world that are much older and more powerful than she is. When she was a child, she and Finn had once stumbled upon a fairy ring in a field. The tiny, red-capped mushrooms had grown up in a perfect circle where the fae had come and danced. There had been an energy surrounding that place, a faint vibration in the air.

Finn had been afraid of the ring and all other manner of un-Christian magic. But to walk where the fair folk had danced made Rey feel...awake.

She feels the same thing when she finds the opening of the cave where she had washed ashore. The night the _Raddus_ had been shipwrecked, she’d seen this entrance by looking up at the ceiling of the rocky cavern. But she had no way to climb up to it. Instead, she’d been forced to wait until the storm ended.

When the seas finally calmed and sunlight shone through the high opening, she had dived naked into the water and swum out into the ocean until she found a place where the island leveled into the sea. She had cut her feet scrambling up the rocks, collapsing as soon as she found a smooth, flat surface. The stone was hot and the sun seeped into her naked body, bringing life back into her limbs.

From this vantage point, the entrance is a fearsome thing, forming an unnaturally perfect circle in the ground. Slick black vines grow out of it, spreading out in all directions. A chill runs through her, even though it is a pleasant day.

Edging closer to the hole on her hands and knees, she feels wetness under her palms, as though the vines never dry out. She peers down into the shadows. She can see the black surface of the water and hear the gentle waves echoing in the cave. It is a still day, the skies clear, the ocean calm.

Later, she will tell the nuns that she slipped and fell, but that will be a lie. The truth is that she stands and takes off her jacket, leaving her boots on even though they will make it harder to swim. She’ll want them when she has to climb back up the jagged stone shore of the island.

She lowers her body feet-first into the hole, hands grasping at the slick edge, until her shoulders are screaming for her to just let go.

And then she does, feeling the rush of air and the sudden submersion.

Panic slams into her.

There is water all around her - in her nose, her mouth, her ears. She kicks hard, her head breaking the surface, but it is too soon. Too similar to that night when she had almost drowned. She manages to hold her head above the water, to look around for the rocky shoreline where she’d spent her first night on the island. Putting her head back under the water is too terrifying to even contemplate, so she tilts her body forward into a weak breaststroke.

The moment her hands find dry ground, she is crying tears of relief. She curls up on her side, wracked with silent sobs that shake her whole body.

She’d once loved the ocean. She’d once been a sailor.

Now, she is no one.

She opens her eyes, wiping saltwater out of them, trying to regain some semblance of dignity. Her sobs fade into heavy, slow breaths as her eyes slowly adjust to the darkness of the cave.

There, just beneath the surface where the stone meets the water, two reflective black eyes peer up at her. She scrambles back over the hard stone, a scream lodged in her throat but unable to escape.

The creature - the person - disappears into the water.

“Wait,” she gasps hoarsely. “No! Wait!”

Rey crawls towards the edge, staring down into the black water. Drops of water fall from her hair, disturbing the still surface. She hardly dares to breathe.

“Come back,” she whispers.

She reaches out, brushing her fingers against the surface of the water. Anticipation stirs in her chest, hoping that the creature will understand that she is not afraid. She stares at the surface for what seems a long time.

Then she sees the being emerge from the inky darkness. He has a man’s face, but is he a man? His skin is pale, his long hair black, his features large and uneven. She can see broad shoulders and the vague shape of his torso, but the rest of him is too distorted by the water to see.

He looks at her, dark eyes ancient and sad. With a trembling hand, he reaches up to brush the tips of his fingers against hers, where the air meets the ocean.

They stay that way for a long time.

“It was you,” Rey says softly.

His fingers leave hers, and he vanishes beneath the water.

 

* * *

  


That night, she dreams that she is in the water again, but this time it is not frightening. It is peaceful. She is floating beneath a starry sky, drifting aimlessly. Time seems not to exist. Her body is still and made of light.

She feels a faint touch against her back, so soft at first that she can barely distinguish it from the water on her skin. It curls along her ribcage, gentle and soothing. Another touch, stroking down her arm, wrapping around her wrist. And another, parting her thighs, opening her to the cool water.

The touching goes on for a long time. She is being stroked everywhere - her stomach, her calves, her inner thighs. Something heavy curls around her breast and she whimpers. It covers her nipple, engulfing it in tight pressure. Her body feels empty. She wants to reach down to put her fingers inside of her, to soothe the ache, but her wrists are restrained.

That should make her panic, but it doesn’t. She is suspended, weightless, protected by the water. Nothing can harm her here.

Something smooth and heavy presses between her thighs, and she cries out, the sensation overwhelming. Her thighs shake as it slips through her folds, over her clit, growing thicker and heavier so that she has to spread her legs a little wider. And then it pulls back, tapering again. It does this over and over again - thickening as it surges forward, only to pull back.

She is aching, the pressure that has gathered low between her hips nearly unbearable. She wants to know what the thing moving between her thighs is. It is caressing her so intimately, giving her pressure...but not entering her. It strokes her until she is trembling, but doesn’t give her what she needs most.

When she finally wakes from the dream, she is so desperate to be filled that she immediately puts her hand between her legs, attempting to replace the pressure that was lost. She shoves two fingers inside, thrusting them as hard as she can through the wetness. Her slender fingers aren’t nearly enough to fill her, not when she is this aroused. They come away slick and she adds a third, finally feeling a slight stretch.

She stifles a cry as she strokes her inner walls, knowing that any sound she makes will carry to the neighboring huts. She pushes her hips up, trying to reach deeper, until her fingers drag across a place that is so sensitive that she finally peaks. She comes hard, fluttering and clenching around her fingers, the pleasure so intense that she lets out a strangled moan. She immediately begins thrusting her fingers again, working herself through the orgasm, grinding the heel of her palm against her clit.

When it is over, she closes her thighs around her hand, too sensitive for touch. She trembles, afraid of the things she had felt in the dream.

It was not a man that touched her. The thing she’d allowed to surge and move between her legs was not a phallus. She had known that - and still pleasured herself to the thought of it.

She denies herself touch for weeks afterward.

 

* * *

 

Luke is not so cruel once she stops asking him to help her leave the island. He teaches her to milk the goats, to spear a fish, and to weave a net. She has only ever fished with a hook and line. The _Raddus_ was a merchant vessel, not a fishing boat.

These little duties gives her a distraction, something to keep her hands busy. And Luke is someone to talk to, even if he is dreary. They speak about easy things: the storm clouds brewing on the eastern horizon, the courtship habits of the island birds, which plants on the island are medicinal and which are poison.

“It’s a strange tree,” Rey says quietly, sitting with Luke in his hut. There are an assortment of artifacts littered around the single room: a silver compass with a smooth, indigo stone in the center, scrolls of parchment, a deck prism. “The one in the valley.”

The old, hollow tree of which she speaks is massive, with a thick trunk that is split open at the base. Its roots grow up in three distinct bundles, instead of down into the earth. It makes her think of paths that veer sharply around fairy stones so as not to disturb them, of will-o’-the-wisp glittering in a misty bog, of a perfect circle of mushrooms growing in a field.

Perhaps it was best that Luke had crushed her hopes of leaving the island. Cutting down that tree would have cursed her.

“I don’t think it is native to the island,” Luke tells her. “But the nuns say it was here before them, and they have been here for five hundred years.”

“How?” mutters Rey. “If there are no men?”

Luke laughs for the first time, blue eyes glittering. “A ship comes like clockwork from Ireland, once every fifty years, with new initiates.”

She looks up at him, wide-eyed. How could he not have told her this?

“It came here the year before last.”

She swallows hard, disappointment curling in her stomach. She will be sixty-eight when the next ship arrives, if she even lives that long.

“I’m going to the top of the island tomorrow. I thought you might like to come with me.”

Rey glances up at him, surprised at the abruptness of his offer. He has always seemed a bit resentful to have her following him around.

She nods.

“At dawn, then.”


	2. Chapter 2

Luke leads the way up the stone steps that wind around the island. Rey has never climbed this high on her own, usually giving up around the halfway mark and turning back to the monastery.

The weather is unusually warm for the island, which is generally dreary. White clouds curl across a pale blue sky, and a pleasant breeze cools her skin. She thinks it would be a lovely day to strip out of her clothes and play in the ocean. To walk along the shoreline and gather rocks, to lay out under the sun until her body is sleepy and content.

By the time they reach the top, the muscles in her thighs are burning. The air is thin. She can feel the stress of the climb in her back and knees. Luke is nearly thrice her age, but the staircase doesn’t seemed to have given him any trouble.

“This way,” he says, and they walk together through a natural archway in the mountain, into a lofty cavern.

Inside, it is beautiful. The rock is a little paler here than it is on the rest of the island. Long ago, someone smoothened the walls and the floor, opening the space into a grand temple. Under Rey’s feet, there are curved lines etched into the stone, great intersecting arcs, as perfect as if they had been drawn by the gods with a compass. Water drips from high above her head into a pool of water in the center of the room.

“What is this place?” she whispers.

“A pagan temple,” Luke says. “Sometimes I come here to be alone. To think, to meditate.”

“Who built it?”

“People lived here once, long ago. They believed in a local sea-god, said to live beneath the island.”

“What sort of god?”

Luke nods toward the shining pool of water. Rey steps forward to look into it. At the bottom of the pool is a mosaic of smooth, oval rocks. Pale moonstone forms the crude shape of a man’s torso...but below the waist he is not human. The lower half of the mosaic is composed of black onyx, the stones placed carefully into eight beautiful, curling lines.

She has to stop herself from reaching into the pool to trace each one of them with her fingers.

“The ancient people of this island kept their sacred texts inside the hollow tree,” Luke murmurs. “From what I can decipher, they considered the god a protector-spirit. But they also feared his power. They forbade their daughters from going near the water, convinced he would beget monsters on them.”

“Have you ever seen him? The god of the island?”

Luke raises his eyebrows. “Have _you_?”

Rey’s throat goes dry. She doesn’t want to tell him about the place under the island.

“I suppose it’s just local superstition.”

Luke makes her sit on a rock just outside the temple with her legs crossed, looking out over the ocean. He instructs her in his practice of meditation.

“Breathe,” he says. “Just breathe.”

She is forced to sit there silently with her eyes closed, thinking of those beautiful black tentacles in the mosaic. Luke chides her everytime she shifts, telling her to still her mind, but she can’t. With her eyes shut, she is completely aware of her body. Her small breasts are aching and heavy. There is pressure low in her abdomen. It makes her restless.

 _He could fill you in so many places_ , a small voice inside of her whispers. Rey is shocked that the thought had come from her own mind. Over the course of her time on the _Raddus_ , she has heard plenty of crude talk from the sailors about their more deviant sexual encounters. But until this very moment, she has only ever thought about taking a man in the usual way - in the soft, yielding opening where she knows a man is meant to put his shaft.

She is very quiet on the walk back to the monastery.

 

* * *

 

Rey knows that going to the cave again is reckless.

She sneaks out of her hut in the early hours of the morning anyway. The nuns are not awake yet, and the crescent moon is still in the sky. With the crisp night air stinging her face, she feels spritely and free.

The drop into the cave is not as bad as it was the first time. This time she doesn’t panic, striking out toward the rocky outcropping with surer strokes, even if she is reluctant to put her head entirely beneath the water. There is something about knowing that he is watching that makes her feel safe.

She heaves herself out of the water onto the dry rock.

The wait seems eternal. Her clothes are nearly dry and a faint gray light has crept into the cave before she sees the disturbance in the water. A tiny tremor, a ripple in the black surface, and then the creature, the _sea-god_ , emerges from the depths until his reflective eyes are visible. Rey holds her breath, scared to move lest he disappear again.

After a long while, he draws closer, rising gently from the water until his face and shoulders break the surface. His torso, broad and solid, is half-hidden by the water, fading into darkness below his navel.

She trembles, kneeling at the edge of the rock.

“I thought you weren’t going to come back,” he says, his voice echoing through the cave. It is a deep voice, deep and wild like the ocean itself. Her lips part breathlessly - he speaks her language! Or perhaps it is magic. Perhaps he speaks in an ancient tongue, and the words change as they pass from his lips to her ears. There is that strange energy in the air; the same energy that passed between them when their fingers touched.

“So did I,” Rey replies.

He tilts his head, considering her. His hair is wet, curling just above his shoulders. Droplets fall from the dark strands and strike the water, the only sound in the cave.

“But here you are.”

“Yes. I wanted to…” She summons her courage. “I wanted to see you again.”

“Why?”

Her throat tightens, thinking of how lonely she has been these past months. Of the emptiness inside her.

“I...I know it was you. That night in the ocean. It was you who brought me here, to this island.”

Her savior stares at her in silence.

“And I know what you are,” she whispers, eyes trailing over his pale skin. The water is still enough that if he would only rise a little higher, she could see...

“What have you been told?” the sea-god asks sharply. The energy around them crackles, like lightning striking sand.

“Only that this is your island. That you are its protector.”

Her words must soothe him, because his hard gaze softens. Moonlight from the cavern’s opening reflects off of the water, sending blue-silver lines shimmering over his face. She is so close to the edge of the water now that when he moves closer, the tiny ripples of the waves brush her fingertips.

“What’s your name?” she whispers.

“I have no name,” he answers. “But long ago, the people of this island called me Kylo Ren. And you, small one...what are you called?”

“I’m Rey,” she says.

“Rey,” he murmurs, voice curling around the single syllable, as if to pull it inside of himself and carry it away into the depths of the ocean.

She licks salt from her lips. “Kylo. Please...please come closer.”

“If I do, you will become afraid.”

“I won’t,” she replies, shaking her head. “You saved me. I’m not afraid of you.”

“Aren’t you?”

She’s shivering, but not with fear.

“Come closer,” she says again. “I want to see you.”

“Why?” he asks.

“I…I just...”

Rey swallows hard, unable to come up with a lie to explain herself. Her core is throbbing again. It has been weeks since she touched herself after the dream. Even as shame floods her body, it responds to the sea-god’s presence. She feels herself growing wet.

“Ah,” Kylo Ren says, sounding pained. “I see. You are unmated.”

“I...I’m not _married_ , if that’s what you mean,” Rey stammers, confused by his odd phrasing.

“It’s not,” he replies, his deep tenor sending a tremor down her spine.

Rey sucks in a sharp breath. Somehow, this creature has sensed that she is aroused. He is close now, close enough that he might have been able to smell her. Or perhaps he has read her thoughts with his magic, as a scholar reads an open book.

“Do you not have a male of your own kind on the island?” the sea-god questions her curiously. “I have seen him, going here and there with his spears and nets, taking the fish from the sea.”

“He’s an old man!” Rey chokes out, horrified at the prospect. Luke is old enough to be her _grandfather_.

Kylo tilts his head. “He is not so old. I have lived beneath the island thousands of years longer than he has walked the earth.”

“I can’t. I can’t tell him about this,” Rey says, nails digging into her palms.

“But you seem to be nearly…”

Kylo trails off, hesitating, perhaps afraid that he will indeed scare her away. He stares at her intently, reflective eyes dark as the night sky.

The energy between them flickers, calling to her. Rey has to know what lies beneath the waves that distort his true form. Her body feels like a rope pulled taut. If he would only rise out of the water, and reveal himself.

“Why have you come back?” he asks again. And it is a strange paradox, because she is small and mortal and easily crushed - but it is he, immortal and unbreakable, who seems terrified to come near her.

Rey kneels at the edge of the water. She looks into his eyes, ancient and unforgiving as the ocean, and finds that she can’t look away. Nor can she lie to him.

“There is something...inside me. Something that has always been there, but now that I’m here, on this island...it’s awake,” she confesses. “That’s why I’ve come to you. The others on the ship...they’re all gone. And now I’m alone. I need someone to show me...”

“You are still so young and small,” he replies, his eyes wary, but gentle. “You are not ready to be mated.”

Tears sting her eyes at his rejection. She’d been so sure...so certain that the sea-god could give her what she needs.

“But I _saw_ it,” Rey insists. “I _dreamed_ it.”

At these words, the water ripples and churns, coming alive. Bright, burning lights appear below the surface, white-blue like stars...before fading into blackness once more. Rey can hardly breathe at this unexpected glimpse of beauty and magic.

“You did?” the sea-god asks, looking at her with a sudden reverence.

She nods, tears falling down her cheeks onto her lips, salty like the ocean. And then the water moves again, turning like a tidal river. Kylo Ren rises higher and higher until his waist emerges from the water, and from the churning waves ascend black, ever-moving tentacles, just as she’d seen in the mosaic on the floor of the pagan temple. They twist and writhe, pushing him forward through the water effortlessly, until he is towering above her.

“The island is working its power in you,” he breathes. “It calls to you, and you listen.”

He brushes the tears from her cheeks. And then his fingertips trail across her mouth. It feels like he has placed a hot coal against her lips.

“Rey. You aren’t alone. I feel it, too.”

His kiss is cold like the water in the cave, soothing the scorching heat of his touch. Rey rises up on her knees, desperate to be equal with him. As he wraps his arm around her waist and presses her body against his, a tiny part of her keens in disappointment. Under her hands, she can feel that the skin of his broad torso ends at his waist. And against her belly, there is nothing but an expanse of smooth, hard scales.

He does not have any male parts. Or if he does, they are hidden somehow.

 _It doesn’t matter_ , she decides, arching her back as he deepens the kiss. His lips move against hers, his tongue tracing the seam of her mouth until she gives in and lets him taste her. There is something primal in the kiss, in the way his tongue invades her mouth, only to withdraw and give her back her breath.

It’s like drowning.

“Please,” she whimpers, lungs struggling for air. Her fingers claw at his shoulders, sifting into his dark hair. The long strands are wet, water droplets streaming down his chest - down the ridges of his abdomen, and the dip where his navel ought to be. As she explores him with her hands, she realizes that he has no place where an umbilical cord would have been cut as an infant.

The water from his chest soaks through her tunic and her breast wrappings. She wants to be rid of them, bare before him.

“Patience, small one,” he murmurs, drawing back. “I meant it when I told you that you are not ready to be mated.”

His words cut through the storm that desire has made of her thoughts. “But…”

Her body aches for him, her nipples hard and her core throbbing. She knows even without touching herself that she is wet between her thighs.

She tries to understand. “Are our bodies...not compatible?”

It doesn’t make sense. Even if he has no cock, he can still pleasure her with his hands and his mouth and his beautiful, writhing tentacles. And if her body is truly too small, as he keeps saying, surely she can do the same for him.

“We are not incompatible,” he assures her. “But there is a timing to these things. An order.”

“When?” Rey whispers, wondering how long he will make her wait. “How will I know when the time comes?”

“There are signs. You will be hungry but unable to eat, and sleep will not visit you even when you are exhausted. Your body will shift with the tides, and your need for a male will overcome you,” he says. “And when it does...promise that you will come to me. You might be afraid, but you must not go to anyone else.”

“Who else would I go to?” she asks, thinking that it is impossible for her to want him more than she does now. She wants to argue with him, to insist that she is already a grown woman, her monthly courses bound to the moon and tides. And she is so empty, her need to be filled almost unbearable. But he is unmovable and she senses that he will not bend to her will on this matter. She has no choice but to be patient. “There isn’t anyone else on the island.”

“Promise me.”

Rey meets his eyes, so dark and strange and different from her own.

“I promise. I’ll come only to you.”

 

* * *

 

Luke allows Rey to borrow the pagan texts he’d taken from the hollow tree in the valley. He has done most of the work deciphering them. Reading them fills the long evening hours in which her mind wanders to Kylo Ren and the promise that she made to him beneath the island.

Most of the books are filled with images that portray grand, mythic histories. The remaining are written in a foreign language, with lettering that doesn’t resemble the English alphabet or any other that Rey has encountered on her travels. Between the pages, Luke has left slips of parchment containing his crude translations.

He seems to have arranged the books in the order in which they were written. The first appears to be a creation story, illustrated with black, indigo, and red hues - likely the only pigments that were known to the native islanders.

It seems to Rey that the pagans believed their island was once a star. It lived alone for many eons, journeying through the heavens, until it was knocked from its path by another, smaller star. The two stars fell from the sky into the ocean, and their light was doused with water. They became the islands - the greater island on which Rey now stands, and the lesser uninhabited island that lies about a kilometer to the northeast. When their light was dimmed, the souls of the two stars became the sea-gods that live under the islands.

The second book seems to be a story of war, and is much more difficult to follow. In this volume, both of the sea-gods are depicted as male, and this seems to be at the crux of the conflict between the pagans and the gods. According to the tale, the two sea-gods were loved and worshipped; the drawings show the inhabitants of the island building temples and shrines to invoke their divine protection. Human priestesses offered their bodies to the gods freely, and bore them powerful, immortal sea-children.

When Rey reaches this part of the book, she lingers on the detailed images of the gods engaging in intercourse with young priestesses. The drawings are provocative, unlike any art that Rey has ever seen before, limbs and tentacles all intertwined together. In one, a woman pleasures a sea-god with her mouth. Her lips wrap around one of his tentacles while another tendril caresses her inner thigh. Rey turns the page to find a drawing of a nude priestess with her arms and legs held open, the sea-god behind her, spreading her limbs with his tentacles so that she is helpless to his ministrations.

When Rey comes across that passage, she can’t help but to stare at the drawing - at the place where the god’s tentacle penetrates the priestess’s body - as she frantically touches herself under the covers. She imagines that she is a servant of the gods, presenting herself to Kylo Ren for the first time. Her fingers imitate the way he might fill her up with one of his tentacles, and she tries to keep the rest of her body completely still as her walls flutter and clench - pretending that he has her bound and at his mercy.

She only wishes the depictions would show her _how_ the gods and the mortal women procreated. While there are several drawings of priestesses with child, the sea-gods are not shown to have any sexual organs. Nor are there any pages that depict the children born by the priestesses.

As she moves through the tomes, Rey learns that the children of the priestesses were rare and precious to the two gods, because they had no females of their own kind. But as the fierce hybrid offspring increased in number, the pagan men grew fearful and forbade their daughters from speaking with the sea-gods, swimming in the ocean, or even walking along the shore of the island.

Here, the drawings become strange and distorted. There are images of a sea-god dragging a young girl down beneath the islands, holding her captive, and coupling with her. Other renderings depict tall, slender ships suspended in a sea of stars, and many-tentacled creatures with crimson spears of light protruding from their bodies.

At night, Rey lies awake for hours, wondering if Kylo Ren seeks to be her protector...or her captor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments on the last chapter! I'd love to know what you think of this one, too. <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey ignores the signs, with terrible consequences.
> 
> (I should warn everyone...this has quickly descended into A/B/O tentacle fic. The tags will be updated accordingly.)

The next time Rey visits the cave, she doesn’t have to wait for him. The moment she drops into the water, Kylo is there beside her, stunning and ethereal. The water ripples and moves as he gathers her into his strong arms. She presses her face into his shoulder, taking in the scents of salt and wind and driftwood as she lets him carry her to shore.

“I’ve missed you, small one,” he murmurs, lifting a single tentacle from the water to caress her cheek. She expects it to be slimy, like the fish that she ensnares in her woven nets, but it isn’t. It is an extension of the rest of him - wet from the water, heavy and firm, the texture of the scales smooth and ridged at the same time.

She lifts her hand, spreading her fingers along the curved part of his tentacle...and for the first time, she understands why he insists that her body is too small for him. The tentacle is tapered at the end, yes, but it thickens quickly. And more concerning, it looks rather hard and unyielding - it would no doubt hurt to have it enter her.

As she considers this, her thumb brushes along the inner part of the curled tentacle. She feels no scales on the underside, only a single line of raised nodules that pulse under the flat of her thumb when she circles over them.

Kylo shudders.   

 _Careful,_ she thinks. Her throat goes dry, instinct taking over. _Soft. Vulnerable._

“I wanted to see you,” Rey says, turning her head to kiss the pale skin of his neck. She feels his pulse thrumming under his skin. The blood of the stars, if the pagan legends are true. “But I…”

His hand soothes along her back, and she finally meets his gaze.

“I wasn’t sure if you would want me to come here again.”

She’s burning. Her skin is burning, despite the cool water. She doesn’t want him to stop touching her, but if she tells him the truth, he might send her away again.

“Why wouldn’t I want you here?”

“The signs you told me about...they haven’t happened yet.”

“So you stayed away.”

“Yes.”

They have reached the rocky outcropping, but she doesn’t let go. Instead, she threads her fingers through his hair, wondering if he will kiss her again. Please, please let him kiss her again.

“That isn’t what I wanted,” Kylo tells her sadly. He separates them, lifting her by her waist and depositing her on the shore. Then he lowers himself back into the water, crossing his arms over the rock in front of her, resting his chin on one of his forearms. “I am very glad you came to see me. There is not much by way of company here.”

Relief courses through her. She smiles, laying down on her back parallel to the shoreline, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

“I don’t have much company either,” she says. “I don’t think the nuns like me.”

“They live on a small island. And so they have small minds.”

“You live here, too,” she points out.

His lips turn up at the ends. “This is my island, yes. But I am not trapped here. I have journeyed to many places.”

“Where have you gone?” Rey asks curiously. “To France? Spain?”

He shakes his head.

“Far away. Across the western sea, where there are other lands. And then I journeyed south, where there are rivers that flow through forests with trees that reach to the heavens, leaves large as you are tall, and birds colored like jewels. And further south still, to the underbelly of the earth, where the land is made of ice and the waters are cold. In the summer, the sun never sets there; but in the winter, it never rises.”

Rey shoots him a skeptical glance, not sure if he is teasing her. “Don’t be absurd.”

“It is true. And on the other side of the land, there is another ocean, with many islands. The light of those islands has not yet been drowned, and when their spirits become angry, they spit fire and ash into the sky. And beyond that, more islands, and finally...”

She is still and silent, lost in the sound of his voice.

“I reached known lands once again,” he says. His eyes are fixed on her face, watching her response. “The place your kind calls China.”

“I have only ever been as far as Greece,” she tells him, wondering if he will think her boring.  

“Then you have seen more of this world than the nuns,” he quips. “Perhaps they are jealous of you.”

“It didn’t help that I was naked when they found me,” Rey laughs. “I fear that I offended their sensibilities.”

Kylo’s eyes darken at the mention of her nakedness.

“No,” he says gravely. “I don’t suppose it did.”

A curious thought strikes her. “Was it you that undressed me the night of the shipwreck?”

She sees him flinch, the reflective sheen of his eyes dimming for a moment. “Yes. That night, you were cold. Shivering. And your clothes were wet. They only made you colder.”

Rey looks away, up at the ceiling of the cavern.

“I’ve displeased you,” he says quietly, his voice like a mournful song. “I forget, sometimes, the traditions of your kind. That being unclothed is...an intimate thing.”

“No,” she says. “It’s just - I don’t like to think of that night.”

He reaches out to touch the back of her hand. A shiver passes through her at the contact. There is a look in his eyes, a sadness that she cannot ever hope to penetrate. But perhaps it is a sadness that they share.

“You lost much that night, small one.”

She shakes her head, not wanting to talk about the _Raddus_. There is too much pain there. Too much grief.

“Can you…?” she whispers, reaching out her hand, asking him silently to join her. To hold her.

Rey expects him to ask her to come back into the water. But instead, he pulls himself up onto the rock, his strong, thick tentacles tensing and releasing with the strain. He faces her, then gathers her body to his. One arm cradles her head, the other her waist. She feels his tentacles gently coil around her back, her thighs, and her calves. With her head against his chest, embraced by his massive form, she feels small and protected.

She means to ask him about the texts, about the violence between the islanders and the ancient gods. But the moonlight is sparkling on the surface of the water, the cave silent and beautiful, and there is a pleasant calmness spreading through her body. Her mind becomes still, a faint inner voice telling her that there is nothing she needs to fear. She is safe. He would never harm her.

She is nearly asleep when she feels his chest move. His voice is gentle, like wind rippling across still water.

“I think of that night often,” he tells her.

 

* * *

 

If it weren’t for the tally marks on the wall, Rey would barely notice the days passing. She is engrossed in the remaining texts and loses track of time. On her hundredth day on the island, she finishes the last of them - an astrological volume, which gives instructions on predicting the future through the movements of the stars, the moon, and the heavenly bodies.

That same evening, she decides to return the books to Luke. She has learned all she can from them. There’s no point in keeping them any longer.

The weather has been dark and misty for weeks, the ocean grey and tumultuous, and there are even darker storm clouds brewing on the horizon. She makes the climb up to Luke’s hut anyway. When she arrives, Luke is polite enough to invite her in for dinner - and she realizes with an abrupt jolt that she hasn’t eaten breakfast or lunch. Her stomach gives a low rumble and she heartily accepts his offer, only to lose her appetite once she is seated at the table and the bird stew is set in a bowl before her.

She eats a few bites, forcing herself to swallow. She doesn’t need to offend Luke, not when they’ve been getting on so well recently.

“You don’t look well, Rey,” the old man says gruffly, putting his hand against her forehead.

For a moment, she leans into the touch - his skin is like worn leather, a man’s hand, strong and protective, and for a single moment she feels perfectly safe -

Rey flinches back, dropping her spoon on the floor. Suddenly she is shaking, her heart hammering against her ribcage. She hasn’t eaten today...and she doesn’t remember if she ate anything for dinner last night.

“Hey, easy,” Luke says gruffly, and every muscle in her body obeys, the tension slowly unraveling. Her stomach quiets, her racing heart slows.

How inconsiderate of her, to jerk away from him like that, when he’d only been concerned for her welfare.

She picks up the spoon from the floor.

“Sorry,” Rey says meekly. “I’ll get another.”

They eat the remainder of the meal together without disturbance, the conversation light and simple. And now that her stomach has settled, the bird stew tastes good - so good that she practically devours it.

By the time she reaches her hut, she is able to find humor in the incident. The books, coupled with Kylo’s warnings about signs and the power of the island, have made her skittish. As she undresses for bed, stripping out of her soaked clothing, she laughs a little, reminding herself that on the _Raddus_ she’d often gone hungry for days at a time.

Missing a few meals isn’t a sign of anything.

 

* * *

 

Rey is restless. The birds of the island swoop from the cliffs and dive into the water, and she wishes she could do the same. Now that she has returned the texts to Luke, she has no distraction from the mundane repetition of life on the island.

There are no more incidents like the one in Luke’s hut, but her food tastes bland in her mouth, and despite her hunger, she picks at it listlessly during mealtimes. A small part of her begins to wonder...but no, she’s not foolish enough to mistake her disinterest in the plain meals as one of Kylo’s signs. If she went to him now, he’d probably think her a clueless, mortal child. The food tastes boring because it _is_ boring - not because of some mystical power of the island at work in her.

She weaves her nets and mends her clothes, wishing that the island would work a bit faster.

 

* * *

 

Night after night, her dreams are formless and vivid, waking her long before the sun rises so that she cannot get any rest. As the weeks drag on, and she adds more tally marks to her walls, the dreams become more vivid and intense. In them, she is bodiless. Nothing more than heat and blazing light, hurtling through immense darkness. But there is a sense of peace and purpose on her journey. She is following an ancient dance, one that she has followed for millenia. She is time itself; her gravity brings order and balance.

The dreams become nightmares of a great collision that brings with it destruction and chaos. The perfection of her course is forever lost as she careens through a vast, cold nothingness…only to be submerged in another kind of cold. A different void, deep but not endless, drifting, sinking, and the fire inside her is so intense that it sears the emptiness around her until it _boils_.

She wakes with that same fire under her skin.

 

* * *

 

Rey has waited too long.

Whatever this is, whatever need Kylo Ren has awoken in her, she has waited far too long to go to him. Her heads hurts terribly, light and heat blazing behind her temple, even though her hut is dark and chilly. Her thighs are coated with arousal, and when she reaches down to brush her fingers against her clit in a vain attempt to soothe the ache, the touch only makes the throbbing in her cunt worsen. It hurts like nothing she’s ever felt before. She needs something to fill her, someone to sate the emptiness inside of her - she needs _Kylo_ , but she’ll never make it to the cave -

She has to make it to the cave. She promised him.

The instinct to lie still, to curl up on her side until this is all over, conflicts with the need to go to him. A whimper leaves her lips as she pushes herself up on her narrow sleeping cot. Her womb contracts and another pulse of clear slick trails down her thighs.

“Oh...god, please,” she moans, pressing the heel of her palm against her lower abdomen.

She forces herself to put one foot on the ground. And then the other. Standing is pure agony, the fire inside of her flaring at the smallest of movements.

Her nightshirt is just long enough to cover her thighs, and it is a small mercy that she has woken in the dead of night, so that the nuns won’t see her like this. Her smallclothes are soaked through with her essence, so she takes them off, only to find that she can’t remember where she’d put her clean laundry. In a basket, somewhere, with her other linens, but she doesn’t know where. She can’t think beyond the boiling water in her veins, and when her core throbs and more fluid gathers between her lower lips, she decides that it doesn’t matter.

She pulls on her boots, her hands trembling too badly to tie them. She gives up and tucks the laces inside, praying they will stay put.

At the cool touch of the metal door handle against her palm, it dimly occurs to her that Luke’s hut is closer than the entrance to the cave. Almost half the distance. She pauses, and small, primal voice inside of her says, _He is a man; it would be enough._

She closes her eyes, pressing her forehead against the roughly hewn door, nauseated by her own thoughts.

“Only to you,” she chants, thinking of her promise to Kylo, even as her body trembles with the intensity of her need.  “Only to you, only to you…”

She repeats the words until she remembers how it felt to be wrapped up in Kylo’s tentacles, shielded by his powerful frame. Every bone in her body is telling her that she is not safe - that it is very, very dangerous to be alone right now. She needs someone - a _male_ \- to protect her, and Kylo is fierce and fearsome, but not towards her.

He will see her through this.

Before she has the chance to lose her nerve, she yanks open the door, and runs toward the path that leads to the cave, stumbling and half-blind in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I'm rushing this story a bit. Maybe because the chapters are shorter than what I usually write. But it wasn't really supposed to have this much plot in the first place, and I can't have it turn into a big multi-chapter thing that I'll never finish.
> 
> Please take a moment to leave a comment below, and to reblog on tumblr. Your feedback always makes my day! <3


	4. Chapter 4

Rey can feel her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she runs. The rocky path is dimly lit by a third quarter moon. Mist hovers over the ground, chilling her exposed legs and making it tricky to navigate the steps. It hurts to run, her core clenching brutally around nothing with each step. But every bone in her body is telling her to find a dark, sheltered place as soon as she can - somewhere secret, somewhere hidden.

Panic takes root in her chest. Never in her life has she felt this unsafe. When she finally reaches the entrance to the cave - that perfect circle in the ground - she nearly sobs in relief.

She collapses onto her hands and knees in front of the hole, fully aware of just how desperate she is. Her arms are trembling, her cunt tight and throbbing. She feels her womb contract in another wave of dull pain, more of the clear fluid slowly leaking out of her body - and it can’t be her arousal, it simply can’t be, because there’s so _much_ , her thighs are coated with it - and she wants to be spread open just like this on her hands and knees, wants Kylo to put his tentacles inside her, wants him to fill every part of her and - and -

There’s something else, something instinctual and ancient, buried deep down inside of her. That unnamed impulse has her crawling forward, lowering herself down into the hole. She feels the air whip around her on the drop, and finally the fire in her veins is soothed by the cold of the ocean.

She lets herself stay there under the surface, holding her breath and letting the water surround her, her mind going blissfully blank. She drifts, surrendering to the tide, before a something thick and heavy wraps around her waist.

The pressure is exquisite.

Her head breaks the surface, and the first thing she does with her newfound breath is whimper, reaching out blindly until her hands meet the broad expanse of Kylo’s chest. Her eyes adjust quickly and she can make out his uneven features and reflective eyes. He draws her closer - _not close enough, inside, please, take me_ \- until she is writhing against him with her legs around his waist. The hard scales that begin at his lower abdomen drag against her center and she keens, the sound echoing through the cave.

“Oh, small one,” Kylo says. His voice is strained, deeper than she has ever heard it. The tentacle around her waist pulls her down, so that the delicate lips of her pussy slide along the ridges of his scales. The sensation is more than she can stand, just on the verge of painful, and she tries to push at his shoulders, to get away. He won’t let her.  

“You’re body is...ready,” he says, marveling at her. “So beautiful.”

“Y-yes,” she whimpers. As if responding to his approval, her core throbs, releasing more slick to protect her fragile, mortal form. It had once seemed inevitable that their union would hurt her, but now, she knows her body will yield to his thick, hard tentacles. “Yes...I need...please, _Kylo…_ ”

He shifts her again, two of his tentacles wrapping around her thighs so that he can open her wide. He ruts the scaled part of his body against her center again, dragging the ridged surface over her labia.

“No, please, it _hurts_!” Rey cries out, burying her head in the junction between his neck and shoulder. It’s too much. Not nearly enough. “ _Please_.”

“I know it does,” Kylo says. One hand cradles the back of her head, stroking her wet hair until her trembling subsides. Only then does he pull back to look at her, his eyes hard. “It hurts because you waited so long to come to me.”

Tears sting her eyes. This is her own fault. She ignored the signs. She waited until it was almost too late. And somehow Kylo's disappointment is worse than the emptiness inside of her, worse than anything she’s ever felt.

“I didn’t know,” Rey tries to explain, unable to look at him, fearing that after all of this he will send her away. “I suspected...but I didn’t know.”

“Did you come straight here?”

“Yes,” she whispers, lifting her eyes to his. Hope sparks in her chest. She kept her promise, so perhaps she hasn’t ruined everything. “I came to you...only to you…”

“Then you did very well, small one,” he tells her, his eyes shining like lanterns in the dark of the cave.

He bows his head to kiss her, and reassurance floods her veins. Tentacles drift along her back, around her arms. One of the tendrils that spreads her thighs moves higher, pressing between his body and hers. It drifts along her clit, the most gentle of touches. The soft underside and raised nodules coax a moan out of her.

 _You did very well,_ she thinks. _He is pleased. He will keep you safe now._

This knowledge has her sighing quietly against his lips, relaxing into the soft, pulsing touch against her clit. The weariness of the past few weeks - the lack of food and sleep - makes her mind hazy, and she rests her head against his chest.

“I’m so tired,” she tells him.

“I know,” he murmurs.

“But I can’t sleep. Only for a few hours at a time. I haven’t really slept in so long…”

“Your heat won’t let you rest until you find a mate. But your mind will quiet, once I take care of you.”

She lets her hand drift down to where his tentacle is rubbing her clit. The thick appendage surges under her palm, hard to the touch, but the underside is gentle against the oversensitive bundle of nerves.

“So good,” she moans, digging her heels into his lower back. He kisses her again, this time deeply, his tongue exploring her. The tentacle around her waist tightens, and the uncoiled part of it roams higher to slip between the drawstrings of her nightshirt. It is a sailor’s shirt that opens in the front, and it’s too big for her, the thin material falling down over her shoulder easily to expose her breast. Kylo’s tentacle covers it so that the peak of her nipple is engulfed.

Her mind tries to process the many different sensations, to separate them, but they blur together. It is overwhelming.

“I’m so...s-so close…”

“Small one,” he says, his hands coming up to frame her face. His breathing is labored, but the words are clear. “You are so perfect. So wet for me. I can’t believe this is your first heat....your first, and you’re doing so well.”

She shakes her head, tears of frustration stinging her eyes as her release evades her.

“I don’t think I can come,” she says, her voice breaking. There is something inside of her, some powerful instinct, that tells her that this...this _heat_...is a dangerous time for her. It tells her not to let her guard down, even though her body is ready to shatter. “I can’t...”

“You’re not alone,” Kylo reminds her. The deep tenor of his voice is commanding and comforting at the same time. His tentacle slips from her clit to her opening. It doesn’t enter her, but the weight presses against her...and she was wrong before. He will never fit inside of her. “You’re safe here. Come for me, Rey. ”

His size should scare her, but instead, it sends a renewed thrum of arousal through her. It is a reminder that he is a sea-god, powerful and unrelenting as the ocean itself. If she were alone, her heat would endanger her, but she is with Kylo. Nothing can harm her.

When he reaches down between their bodies to touch her with his hand, she cries out, canting her hips toward him. He uses her slick to coat his fingers as they slip through her folds, only to return to her clit, circling the sensitive bundle of nerves. The tentacle around her nipple tightens, intense pressure tightening and releasing, and she clutches at his shoulders.

“Kylo…” she chants, over and over again. “Kylo, please.”

“Come for me,” he says again, pressing hard against her clit.

Rey’s center clenches with her release, searching in vain for the tentacle that rests at her opening, as if her body wishes to draw it inside. She cries out, burying her face against Kylo’s shoulder as her orgasm finally washes over her. He keeps touching her, prolonging her pleasure as her body shudders. Her moans fade into tiny whimpers, and his hand gradually slows, until she is spent.

His tentacles drift along her limbs, the neutral touch soothing after so much stimulation. The urgent throbbing in her core has diminished to a dull ache - but she senses that the reprieve won’t last long.

“Not enough,” she breathes against Kylo’s jaw, pressing a kiss there.

He tilts his head down, capturing her lips with a groan.

“I need you to rest first. If I hunted for you, would you eat?”

“No,” she says immediately, her stomach rolling. “No food. No leaving.”

He grows very quiet, his hand trailing down over her ribcage. Rey knows that she is thin, famished from weeks of barely eating anything.

“The heat will last several days,” he says finally. “And you will need to eat.”

The part her of her that is still lucid grows fearful at his words. If she remains here for days, the nuns will notice that she’s gone missing. They might come looking for her. But with Kylo holding her, drifting with her in the water, all of that seems very far away.

“So you have to go?”

“Not far. Only to the cove, near the entrance of the cave. I’ll be watchful.”

Her throat grows tight. He’s not going to leave - and he’ll watch over her, to make sure no one else finds her here. She wants to give him something in return, to show him how much the protection he offers is affecting her. She wants him to be pleased, to come back to her, to keep her safe, to never leave again.

It concerns her that he doesn’t seem to have found his own pleasure, and her stomach tightens with worry. He hadn’t entered her at all, nor was there any visible sign of his arousal. She worries at her lip with her teeth, realizing that she doesn’t even know which parts of him to touch. She doesn’t know how to bring him to completion.

And if she doesn’t satisfy him, he might not want to return to her.

“What if...what if I need you again?” she says. Shyness comes over her, at the way this heat is changing her body. The ocean has already washed away most of her slick, but there is a tightness in her lower abdomen that tells her she will be ready again soon. “And you’re not back yet?”

His tentacle brushes her face. “You’re trembling. Was the onset of your heat so terrible?”

“I woke to it,” she whispers. Her core flutters at the weight of the tentacle against her cheek, wanting it to touch her elsewhere. “And I was so afraid...”

They have drifted slowly to the rocky outcropping. She whimpers as he releases her, disentangling his tentacles from her body and setting her atop the smooth rock.

“I didn’t expect you to wait so long,” he says, an apprehensive look crossing his features. “I thought you would come to me at the first sign. And I...I’ve been preparing. There’s driftwood, so that you aren’t chilled. I’ve seen your kind burning it, at night or when the weather is cold.”

Sure enough, there is a pile of driftwood stacked against the far wall of the cave. The wood is dry, proving that he really had been waiting for her arrival, perhaps for weeks.

His reflective eyes are fixed on her, watching to see how she will receive this gift. She hardly knows what to say. The gesture is thoughtful, remarkably so, because he has no need for a fire to stay warm. The sole purpose of the driftwood is for her...to keep her comfortable during her heat.

Her thighs shake, the offering of driftwood affecting some primordial part of her being. Her body responds powerfully, disjointed thoughts of _provider_ and _guardian_ and _mate_ making her wet again _._ She steadies her voice, and says, “Don’t stay away long?”

“How could I?” he says, the water churning as he raises himself to her level. The kiss he places upon her lips is gentle, and he follows it with one to her forehead. “Try to rest. I’ll be back before the sun rises.”

 

* * *

 

Rey builds herself small a driftwood fire, the flames tinged with blue and violet light. She takes off her nightshirt and boots, placing them on a nearby rock to dry, and then lies down naked beside the fire. Overcome by her heat, she hadn’t noticed the cold when she was in the water with Kylo, but now she shivers in the nighttime air.

The warmth of fire slowly seeps into her skin, comforting her. She runs her hands down her sides, over her belly...and then tentatively reaches between her thighs. Now that her terror has subsided, the changes the island is working in her body fascinate her. Kylo left her less than half an hour ago, but her clitoris is already swollen and her labia are very sensitive. The slightest touch makes her tremble.

But she is so very tired, and Kylo had told her to sleep, so she obediently removes her hand, resting it on her lower stomach. She stares at the fire, her eyelids growing heavy as she watches the brightly colored flames flicker.

It reminds her of the far north, where the mirrie dancers sprinted across Scotland’s night sky. She had spent a cloudless night high up in the shrouds of the _Raddus_ , transfixed by the vibrant trails of light, until the sun came up and the dancers fled. 

For the first time in a long time, she doesn't weep at the memory of the  _Raddus_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment! <3
> 
> P.S. Don't build driftwood fires in real life. I know they're pretty, but apparently they'll kill you. I'm justifying the use of it here because I'm fairly certain people didn't know about carcinogens in the ambiguous historical setting I've created for this fic.


	5. Chapter 5

“Rey.”

At the sound of her name, she wakes from a deep slumber to immeasurable emptiness. Without being told, she knows that she is once again in the throws of her heat - but this time, there is no terror in it.

Rey is already being held down by Kylo’s thick tentacles, and she arches back into him, reveling in the heavy weight of the limb that pins her to the ground. A sound escapes her mouth, a wordless plea that echoes through the cave. Her core contracts and releases around nothing, over and over again. She presses her thighs together, feeling the slick that has gathered between them.

“It’s alright,” she hears Kylo say above her. Another tentacle slips under her body, pulling her up onto her hands and knees. Her arms tremble, unable to support her own weight, but it doesn’t matter. Kylo is holding her, keeping her in place, two of his strong tentacles parting her thighs wide.

“Oh,” she gasps, embarrassed as another pulse of slick trickles down her thigh. She shuts her eyes tightly, horrified that she cannot hide her responsiveness the way she could in the water. Except instead of deterring Kylo, it seems to spur him on. His tentacle moves up her inner thigh, gathering her wetness. The heavy weight of it slips easily through her folds to rub against her clit and pleasure sparks through her, even as the dull pain in her core flares.

“No,” she cries, reaching down to still his movements. Her hand wraps around his tentacle, nails scraping over the dips and ridges. Above her, she hears Kylo groan from deep in his chest, and she looks down between her thighs. The tentacle in her hand is so thick that her fingers can barely close around it. It pulses against her palm and her thighs tremble.

“Not there, please,” she begs. “Please, I’m so empty, it hurts...I need...”

“You need to be mated,” Kylo says quietly, his voice strained. The tentacle in her hand thrusts through her fingers. Rey watches, transfixed at the way the scales move as the tentacle surges forward. For the first time, she notices that the flat, black ridges are slightly pliant, so that the tentacle’s movements are unrestricted. Her throat goes dry at the thought of how he might curve one of those graceful tendrils inside of her.   

“Do you know how lovely you are like this?” Kylo asks her, retracting the tentacle back through her fingers.

Rey clutches her hand tighter around it, loving the way in feels against her palm. She can hear his breath catch as her thumb drags over the very tip, where the scales are smaller and denser. They merge with the vulnerable underside of his tentacle, and she knows she has found a sensitive place. With a shudder, Kylo pulls the tentacle away entirely, leaving her hand terribly empty, and she lets out a low whine in protest.

“Do you know how many times I’ve dreamed of you just like this, spread open and begging for me?”

 _He dreamed of you. He is pleased with you_.

Her body sings as Kylo runs his strong hands down her back, then over the curve of her ass. She arches her spine and tilts her hips higher, keening as the walls of her cunt flutter desperately. He trails his knuckles lightly along her inner thigh, toward her entrance, and finally, finally, he presses a single finger into her.

“Oh, yes, there,” she whispers, using her knees to push back against the intrusion. Her walls tighten around the digit, the slight pressure teasing her until she feels like sobbing. This isn’t enough - surely he will give her more - he said she needed to be mated, he said he would take care of her -

“Be still, small one,” he breathes, his finger still buried in her. He bends over briefly to kiss the base of her neck. “I won’t leave you like this.”

The second finger slides into her with little resistance, her tight passage eased by her arousal. She’s not full, not even close, but Kylo presses down with those two fingers, hard against the front wall of her cunt.

And it’s divine, the way her lungs are fighting for air, the way her heart pounds and her body strains. The walls of her cunt flutter around his fingers, the pleasure so intense that she can hardly breathe, much less cry out for him. She comes undone, all of the tension in her body unraveling, drifting out with the tide, and from very far away she can hear Kylo telling her how perfect she is. How good she smells, how much he wants to be inside her, how he would do anything for her.

Rey expects the ache inside of her to subside in the wake of her orgasm, as it had before. Instead, the swiftness of her release leaves her wanting, and the ache worsens, replaced by a different kind of need.

Kylo turns her so that she is lying on her side, with her back to his chest, still working her with his fingers. His tentacles roam her sides and her hips leisurely, taking his time even though it feels as though she will die if he doesn’t fill her now. Another tendril moves to cup her right breast. Kylo uses the slightly raised nodules on the sensitive underside to circle her nipple with delicate precision until it stiffens. Rey shifts her hips, craning her neck to stare up at this otherworldly god who is holding her as though she is precious to him. As though she is made of glass, instead of flesh and bone.

“Take me,” she whispers, lifting her hand to touch the pale skin of his cheek. “Kylo, please, take me.”

He kisses her, and yet another tentacle presses against her entrance, where his fingers are still curved inside her. Slowly, he drags his fingers out of her to grip her thigh, spreading her open again. His hand is wet with her slick.

The moment Kylo enters her, she tenses at the intrusion. His tentacle is hard and unyielding as it slowly pushes deeper and deeper, and her breath catches in fear when it seems her body won’t accept him. Except it does, tears stinging behind her eyes as her whole being parts, splitting open, surrendering to the massive column of his tentacle.

It feels as though he could tear her apart from the inside.

She trusts him not to.

“You’re taking me so well,” Kylo soothes her, pressing a kiss to her brow, and then her cheek. “Just a little deeper, small one - let me in.”

“Oh,” she whispers, the tears finally falling as he pushes impossibly deeper to fill her completely. If it weren’t for the slick easing the penetration, she would have stopped him. But the oppressiveness of her heat has her lying perfectly still, instinct telling her that she needs to accept him...to let her mate claim her.

The pain of stretching to accommodate him mingles with the relief she feels at having him inside her. Kylo holds her for a long time, moving his fingers in little circles around her clit as her body adjusts to him, a string of honeyed words falling from his lips.

“The pain will pass, small one,” he assures her, taking her hand and leading it down to where they are joined. She feels his thick tentacle, parting the swollen folds of her labia. And she feels the heat pouring out of her, the mess of her arousal between her thighs, under their fingers, on his tentacle. “You must have needed this very badly.”

Her core contracts around his tentacle, confirming the truth of his words, and she feels the tension inside of her ease slightly. The tip of him - that gathering of hard, dense scales - finally hits her cervix and she moans.

“Look down, Rey,” he says, authority flooding his voice. “I want you to see.”

She obeys, transfixed at the sight of his beautiful, black tentacle parting her dark pink folds. It steals her breath away to see him buried inside of her. Ever so slowly, he draws his tentacle out of her, and Rey cries out in pleasure at the slow drag of him against her sensitive inner walls.

“Yes?” Kylo murmurs.

“Yes, oh, yes,” she sobs in assent, throwing her head back as he thrusts into her again, hitting places inside her that she has never been able to reach with her own fingers. His strokes are smooth and deep. They roll through her like the waves of the ocean through the cave.

A sense of peace washes over her. This is exactly where she is meant to be.

“Rey,” Kylo says, dropping his forehead to her shoulder. He inhales sharply, his grip on her thigh tightening as his thrusts become more urgent. She loves the way the hardened tip drags against her front wall, how the nodules on the underside of his tentacle add friction on each withdrawal.

Her mind narrows to a single thought: _Harder._

“More,” she chokes out. “I want you to…”

If he were a man, she would ask him to come for her. To come inside her. To fill her with his seed.

“Can you come with me?” she asks, praying that he’ll understand. She know that she won’t be complete, that her heat won’t be satisfied, until he does. “Inside me?”

His eyes find hers and darken impossibly, his jaw clenching. His thrusts become slow and unsteady. It is clear that he taken with her offer, and her heart beats hard in anticipation.

“Not tonight.”

Tears spring into her eyes at the unexpected rejection. Her thighs shake as he spears into her harder. She thrashes against him, trying to understand why he would deny her when he so clearly wants this as badly as she does. The sounds of their bodies moving together grow louder - the lurid, slick sounds of his thrusts filling the cave.

Maybe it’s her. Maybe there’s something wrong with her.

“You don’t want…?”

He presses his hand flat against her abdomen, pressing down as he fills her, and she moans. It occurs to her that he can probably feel his tentacle as it surges inside of her, just under his palm. Her core throbs and she releases a strangled cry.

“I want it more than you know,” he tells her, his breathing labored. “I want to keep you here for days and days. I want to mate you until you’re filled with my come. Until you’re…”

He goes very quiet, his thrusts gentling, and she stares up at his striking features. His fingers trail across her stomach, and there is some part of her, buried deep under her skin, that knows exactly what he wants to do with her.

Every part of her body is telling her to let him. To allow him to fuck her through her heat until her cunt is filled with his come.

Until he is sure that she carries his child.

“You could,” she whispers breathlessly. “I’d let you.”

The tentacle inside of her pulses, curving to drag along her inner walls. The sound that leaves Kylo’s throat is carnal and possessive. She arches back into him, and he spreads her legs wider so that he can rut into her.

“I know you would,” Kylo says, each thrust drawing a soft, feminine cry from her. She is so close. His deep, powerful voice in her ear is pushing her toward the edge. “You would let me do anything I wanted with you. Anything at all. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” she sobs.

“Then open your pretty little mouth for me,” he commands.

He lifts an imposing tentacle to her lips and her throat goes dry, even as her walls throb and clench around the tendril buried in her cunt. He wants her to take him in her mouth, at the same time as he…

“Open, Rey.”

She takes the proffered tentacle in her hand, her lips parting slightly as she sucks in a nervous, shallow breath. This tendril is slightly different from the others: a bioluminescent fluid leaks from between the dense scales at the tip, shining blue-white even in the darkness of the cave.

It is starlight made water.

 _This one_ , her mind whispers impatiently. _This is the one you want inside of you_.

“Kylo…” she tries to persuade him, one last time.

He kisses her shoulder.

“I said not tonight, small one.”

He’s given her a command, and she wants to obey. Above all else, she wants him to be pleased with her. So Rey leans forward, her tongue darting out to taste him. The inky-black scales flare at the gentle swipe, releasing more of the beautiful fluid, and Kylo groans from deep in his core.

Encouraged by the sound of his pleasure, Rey wraps her lips around the tip, exploring the ridges and dips of the scales. The taste of him is intriguing - a little thicker than water, ever so slightly metallic - and there is a pleasant burn like whiskey at the back of her throat when she swallows it.

When she takes him deeper into her mouth, Kylo rewards her by resuming his slow, steady thrusts into her pussy. She moans in pleasure, relaxing her jaw as much as she can, so that he can push the tendril toward the back of her throat. On each withdrawal, she rasps her tongue flat against the tip of him, chasing his taste. The weight of him on her tongue and the pressure of him inside her body reduce her to a desperate, shivering mess in a matter of minutes.

She thinks she could stay like this forever, with her thighs parted and her mouth open for him. Her mind drifts, emptied of all fear and worry, and it takes her several long moments to realize that she is coming. The sounds she makes are unlike her, desperate sobs and moans that escape around the thick organ in her mouth. The immense pressure inside of her unravels. Tears of relief sting her eyes as Kylo continues thrusting into her mouth and cunt, restraining her against him even after her orgasm fades and her body grows still in surrender.

And somehow, she still yearns for more.

The tentacle in her mouth grows and pulses. Kylo’s essence spills onto her tongue and burns down the back of her throat. She struggles to swallow it all, with her mouth already full of him. The organ swells at the tip, a strange, scaled knot dragging across the roof of her mouth, stretching her lips slightly when he pulls out of her mouth.

She collapses in his arms, gasping for breath and shaking. She is completely spent - there is slick and blood between her thighs, tears on her cheeks, spit and the come of a sea-god on her lips - but Kylo gently separates their bodies and turns her in his arms so that they are lying face-to-face. He kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her.

“You did so well,” he breathes against her lips, no doubt tasting himself on her. “I am...very pleased.”

He must pull the words out of some ancient part of his psyche, because they stir her heart and her body. She rests her head against his broad chest, basking in the warm knowledge that she has satisfied him. The relentless heat inside her finally abates and she sighs contentedly, running her hand down his side until she finds the hard scales beneath his abdomen.

She faintly remembers her disappointment when she realized he had no cock. The memory seems to belong to another life. She will never be able to lie with a man. Not without comparing it to this.

“I need to clean myself up,” she whispers after a long while, tilting her head up to look at him.

“Why?” Kylo asks, running his thumb along her lower lip. She wonders if he can still see his come, glowing against her skin. He could mark her with it, she realizes. Claim her for everyone to see. “You look...beautiful like this.”

Her cheeks burn.

She decides that she can lie with him a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying this fic, please reblog on my tumblr (nightsofreylo).
> 
> As always, I really love reading your comments! <3


	6. Chapter 6

From the edge of the water, Kylo watches Rey cook the offerings he has brought back from his hunt. She kneels next to the fire, as naked as she was the night she first arrived on the island, stirring the coals with a long stick. Kylo has brought her a number of fish, as well as many shelled creatures that she is not usually able to catch in her nets: scallops, oysters, and clams. She lays sticks in parallels lines over the driftwood embers to cook the fish and scallops. But the other oceanic animals she eats raw, cracking open the shells to scoop out the cold insides.

When she has eaten more than enough, she walks to the edge of the water and sits before him with her toes skimming the surface. Kylo’s eyes darken and his jaw clenches, a telltale sign that the heavy scent of her arousal has reached him. But he doesn’t make any move to take her. He just watches and waits.

“Are you full?” he murmurs.

“No,” she whispers, shifting a little to rub her thighs together. She had felt his eyes on her the entire time she was cooking, and now her heat is flaring, her body reacting to his watchful protectiveness. The taste of the meal that he provided for her still lingers on her tongue - and she feels her womb contract, her body readying to take him again.

Her hunger might be satisfied, but she is far from full.

“No?” he says, feigning ignorance. “Shall I go hunting again then?”

Rey swallows hard, shaking her head. She glances at him shyly, waiting for him to come forward...she wants him to drag her into the water, to push her back against the rocks...to give her some relief from the tension building inside of her.

Her breathing quickens and her breasts ache. She feels slick on her thighs, pooling onto the rock beneath her, and she knows the scent must have reached him. How is he still so calm?

Long minutes pass. The ache in her core worsens, her hands clench and unclench at her sides...and she knows that it won’t be long before it begins to truly hurt. But he’s going to make her ask, she realizes, before he takes her again.

Gathering her courage, she takes a shaky breath and opens her thighs, showing him the growing wetness at her center.  

“Please?” she whispers. “Mate me again?”

His dark eyes gaze boldy at her cunt - at the evidence of their prior coupling, and at the clear slick that pulses out of her from between her pink folds. Suddenly her senses return to her, and she snaps her knees back together, her cheeks burning in mortification. She closes her eyes and crosses her forearms over her breasts.

“Rey.”

She shakes her head wordlessly, embarrassed that she’d begged - _begged_ \- him to fill her again. Her virgin blood still stains her thighs, and already she is pleading with him to mate with her again.

“You can’t hide from me, small one,” murmurs Kylo, his voice lowering. She hears him move and feels the displacement of the water around her ankles. “I’ve already seen what your heat does to you. You were so beautiful last time...it was only a matter of minutes before you were begging me to fill you. Begging for my come. You won’t last long this time either.”

Anger and shame rise in her, and she opens her eyes. He is closer now, his broad frame rising slowly out of the water - and she has become his prey. A small, weak thing for him to hunt and mate. It would take no effort on his part to reach out and pull her thighs back apart with his hands. Her mortal body would offer little resistance against his unyielding tentacles.

Her breathing goes shallow. The part of her mind that is clouded by her heat thrills at the thought of him chasing her. Catching her. She trembles at the thought of his tentacles coiled around her limbs, restraining her as he uses her body for his own pleasure.

“I don’t need you,” she spits out, ignoring the heat and slick that are pulsing out of her body.

He goes utterly still, his gaze moving from her face to the place where her arms cover her small breasts. Then his eyes trail lower, to her closed thighs. His nostrils flare and his eyes darken furiously.

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” she maintains, her pride getting the better of her.

For a moment, she thinks that in his anger, he is going to drag her off of the rock and into the water. That he is going to take her regardless.

Instead, his eyes soften and he says, “So be it.”

They stare at each other for a long time. Her cunt throbs and her skin burns under his gaze. She gasps as her core clenches around nothingness, and then, instinctively, she shifts her hips so that the smooth rock under her stimulates the swollen outer lips of her pussy.

She whimpers at the contact, feeling a dull pain spread through her lower abdomen, and suddenly she is terrified at the prospect of facing her heat alone. Kylo is still there, still watching her...but his gaze is hard, instead of protective. He is not going to see her through this, not after what she just said. It will hurt again, the way it had when she was alone in her hut, unless she can find something, anything, to soothe the ache.

She tries to stay very still, knowing that any movement will just make her more aware of the emptiness between her thighs. But when the pressure inside her becomes unbearable, she gives in and pushes her hips down. Her womb clenches, a mortifying wave of slick spreading over her lower lips, and she feels tears sting at the inner corners her eyes.

“Oh, god,” she gasps desperately, shaking her head in denial. After a few moments of trembling, trying to focus on anything other than the pressure building in her core, she unfolds her arms from her chest and pushes herself to the very edge the water. She slowly lowers herself down, and nearly sobs in relief. The first few moments in the water are bliss - the cold licks at her skin and she throws her head back in a long, deep moan.

Her relief is short-lived. The water is just deep enough that she can’t touch the bottom, so any hope she had of touching herself while in the water is ruined. She grabs at the rocky outcropping, steadying herself against it, and looks over her shoulder for Kylo.

Except he is gone. There is nothing, not even a ripple in the surface of the water...nothing but the inky darkness of the cave.

_No._

Fear slams into her hard, knocking the breath from her lungs. Her eyes skim the water desperately and she is suddenly very aware of how exposed she is, fully naked in the water. Need pulses at the apex of her thighs, her arousal mingling with the water...a signal that she is ready to be found, to be mated. And she does not know what manner of spirits other than Kylo live in the depths of the ocean.

Suddenly she is crying, shaking, tears streaming down her cheeks at the thought of another being finding her like this. She shuts her eyes, burying her face against the rock, closing her lips tight to stifle her sobs.

Time seems to stretch on for an eternity, every instinct in her body reminding her that she is at her most vulnerable like this. And Kylo has left her alone. She displeased him, and now he has left her without a mate to see her through her heat. The thought of any other person, human or god, taking her as Kylo had -  

“Rey,” a voice breathes softly against the shell of her ear - and it is his voice, deep and untamed and gentle all at once.

The relief that floods her body is instantaneous. She curls even further into the rock, her fingertips still clinging to the edge. He presses his entire body against her, trapping her against the rock, covering her small body with his own - but it is not a mating gesture. It is an offer of shelter, his very presence a protective barrier between her and the rest of the world.

“Did you really think I would leave you like this?”

“I said…I said I didn’t _need_ you...”

“Yes, small one. I heard what you said.” He kisses her brow. “Let go of the ledge, Rey.”

Gentle as his voice is, the words are still a command - a test, to see if she will submit. Her whole body trembles and her fingers go slack. There is nothing holding her against the rock except for him, the weight of his chest against her back, pinning her in place...and for some reason, her mind goes very quiet.

_Your mate is here. Be still; he will take care of you._

Kylo’s tentacles slowly coil around her back and her thighs. He lifts her out of the water, laying her down at the very edge of the rock. The boiling heat in her veins contrasts sharply with the cold air on her soaked skin. He strokes her wet hair.

“Do you still wish to see yourself through your heat?” he asks.

“No,” she whispers, scalding panic thrumming under her skin again. The dull ache inside of her becomes painful, and Kylo immediately pushes a hand against her stomach, sensing the source of her distress. Words spill out of her, frantic and disjointed. “No, I don’t…I want you to mate me, Kylo. Please, please, mate me...I need you...want you inside me...”

“Where?”

“Everywhere,” she says breathlessly.

He goes entirely rigid, considering her with his reflective eyes. The warm pressure of his hand on her stomach is unbearable.

“Show me.”

She obediently parts her thighs for him, shivering as the cool air hits the sensitive skin of her labia. This time, when his reflective eyes fall on her, she doesn’t dare close her legs.

“Look at you,” he breathes, taking in the sight of her. At the approval in his tone, her core throbs painfully. She feels the slick as it leaves her body, hot and wet against her swollen folds, and turns her face away so that she won’t have to see him look at her.

He uses two of his strong tentacles to part her thighs even wider...and she _knows_ he can see everything. The tiny bud of her clit, the thin, delicate inner folds, and the clear fluid that keeps pulsing from her entrance.

“Is this what you wanted to hide from me?” he murmurs. “All this pretty slick?”

Another tentacle drags against her center, gathering her wetness and pushing it back inside in a single, smooth thrust. She tenses and cries out, still sore from their first coupling only hours earlier. Kylo stills inside of her.

“What is it, small one?”

“It hurts,” she gasps quietly. “From before.”

Her inner walls clench around him, and she is not sure if her body is trying to push him out or to take him deeper. She trembles in arousal and confusion.

“Don’t move,” he commands. “Easy. Just lie still for me.”

He keeps the first tentacle rooted deep inside of her as he settles his body atop hers and kisses her. The pressure of his mouth against hers is tender, affectionate. She laces her fingers through the wet strands of his long hair, deepening the kiss, wanting it to go on forever. She feels the slight brush of another tentacle against her breast and cries out into his mouth, this time in pleasure.

“Steady,” he murmurs, almost to himself. Another tentacle joins in, pushing into the small of her back. “Very gently…”

She trembles as she realizes exactly what he intends to do with her. He begins stroking her everywhere...her breasts, the curve of her waist, her hips...but the tentacle inside of her remains utterly still. It fills her up, quieting her heat, while the remaining tentacles bring her pleasure in other ways. Within minutes, she is trembling under him, crying out softly into his chest.

It seems to be just as overwhelming for Kylo to have all of his tentacles stimulated at once. He groans through gritted teeth when Rey closes her hand around one that keeps rutting against her stomach, giving it a long, smooth stroke. She feels wetness under her fingertips and looks down to find that it is leaking that beautiful, starlit fluid onto her belly.

“Are they all very sensitive?” she asks curiously.

“Yes,” he answers. “But this one more so than the others.”

“Why?” she asks shyly, tightening her grip as she moves her hand up and down its length. The moan that follows is low and deep, his eyes closing tight. He shudders as she works it with her fist, his breath becoming labored.

“It is...the only one...designed for mating.”

“It became very swollen,” she says thoughtfully. “In my mouth.”

“Yes,” he says, his voice rough and his eyes wide. “It is a knot, meant to keep us locked together...so that my come will remain inside of you.”

Rey licks her lips, remembering the way her mouth had stretched slightly on his withdrawal. “Then it would have become bigger? If you had left it?”

“Yes,” he says hesitantly. “But I didn’t think you would want...”

“Oh, please,” she says, struck by the inexplicable desire to feel his mating tentacle, pulsing and swollen, on her tongue. The only thing she could possibly want more would be for him to bury it in her cunt. “Yes, please, Kylo…”

Kylo touches her cheek softly. “Are you certain? It will last for some time.”

Rey grips his tentacle tighter in her hand, lifting the heavy tendril to her mouth. She presses a tiny kiss to the tip, listening to his breath catch. Emboldened by his reaction, she whispers, “I meant it, when I said that I wanted you inside me _everywhere_.”

He considers her for a moment.

“Everywhere?” he repeats.

“Yes,” she says, allowing the implication to hang in the air. He looks stunned, half afraid to ask her...but his hand spreads along her hip, the base of her spine...his fingertips trail lightly down along the curve of her backside...

Without warning, she spread her lips over the very tip of his tentacle, fluttering her tongue over the raised scales, and Kylo shouts hoarsely into the cave. She feels the tiny half-moons flare, and hears him gasp as some of his fluid leaks out onto her tongue. Pride fills her chest at the taste of him.

 _Let him wonder if you were speaking only of your mouth_ , she thinks victoriously, taking him further into her mouth. She can feel the nodules on the underside of his tentacle, bumping across the inside of her cheek as he twists it in her mouth. She hums in pleasure. _Let him be the one to burn for a change._

He must be close, because he puts his hand between her thighs and begins circling her clit with his fingers. She can feel his tentacles trembling wherever he touches her - pulsing against her back, on her stomach, and inside her pussy. She opens her eyes to watch him come for her.

“Rey,” he chokes out, thrusting a little into her mouth. She focuses on taking tiny, shallow breaths through her nose, on the feel of him dragging across the back of her throat. He is speaking to her, his words disjointed by pleasure: “You are _exquisite_...Your mouth is so...so tight around me. I thought about this the moment I saw you...I’d never, never before...but I knew how pretty you would look knotted, how perfect you would feel...”

Her brow furrows, trying to understand, but the tendril buried in her pussy gives a gentle, experimental thrust, and then there is nothing but her all-consuming heat. A low moan escapes her mouth, muted by the tentacle pulsing on her tongue. The urgency of her need dulls any pain she might have felt; her back arches, her hips pushing forward, so taken by the way he fills her in both places. She sucks hard on him, relaxing her jaw - his hand presses at the back of her neck, tilting her head up, urging her to take him deeper -

His come burns down the back of her throat without warning and a strange thrill fills her chest. _Wait_ , her instincts tell her, her throat working hard to swallow it all. _Be still_. His tentacle grows, swelling at the tip to fill her mouth completely, until it is lodged behind her teeth.

“That’s it,” he says, stroking her cheek reverently. She whimpers when his thumb curves along the hard knot through the soft skin. “Take it all.”

She breathes hard through her nose, suddenly very aware of his hand moving between her thighs. His fingers spread over her clit in urgent circles, her core still filled with his thick tentacle. The knot in her mouth gags the noises she makes and her tongue flutters, trapped under the weight of it.

“Are you full yet, small one?” he murmurs, rubbing back and forth over her clit. His eyes are fixed on her mouth, her lips stretched around his tentacle. “Hmm?”

She shakes her head and sobs around his knot, wondering how it would feel swollen and locked _inside_ of her, instead of in her mouth. The thought pushes her over the edge. She writhes against him, coming hard, her inner walls pulsing and fluttering around his tentacle. Her eyes widen as the scales of his knot flare against the roof of her mouth, another hot rope of his come scalds at the back of her throat.

_Oh, oh, oh._

Her throat and her cunt tighten together. She swallows his essence - and deep inside, she feels her slick easing an impossible stretch as he curves the tendril at the end into a pale imitation of a knot...almost locking their bodies together. Almost.

And it is a glorious thing, the way her body eases, the burning under her skin softening into a cool pleasure. She lets him cradle her body against his own, stunned and panting around the knot in her mouth.

It lasts a long time. He comes twice more, his body tensing as his knot pulses and his scales flare. Each time, he shudders, watching her throat move as she swallows every bit of him.

Finally, he softens in her mouth, the knot becoming just small enough to slip out from between her teeth. When it is over, he rests his mating tentacle against her stomach, looking at her with fierce pride. She loves the way it feels, heavy and warm and solid on her belly.

“Rey,” he says, after a moment.

She tilts her head up to look at him - at his handsome, uneven features, and the strong set of his shoulders. His hand spreads along her lower back, holding her against him. Ever so gently, he unfurls and removes his tentacle from inside her. She sighs at the loss of him.

_Stay here. Stay with your mate._

“If you truly don’t want this - if you have any doubt - then you should leave now,” Kylo says, even as his hand curves possessively around her hip. His dark eyes look up at the ceiling of the cavern, to the place where the moonlight streams through the perfect circle. “The restraint I showed you tonight is the last I have in me.”

“I can’t leave,” Rey whispers. 

_I don't want to leave - please, please don't let me leave, keep me here, I'll be so good -_

The words catch in her throat. “I was so afraid when you weren’t here.”

He goes very quiet, pressing small, soothing circles into the small of her back.

“Does that ever go away?” she asks.

“No,” he says finally. “It is a part of your heat. But it doesn’t mean you can’t be alone, if that is what you want.”

“That’s not what I want,” she says.

“If you stay, then you should know," he murmurs cautiously. "Being around you, when you’re in heat...I can’t help but respond to you.”

Her throat goes dry. “Alright.”

“You are sending me into a rut. And once it begins…” He shudders faintly, plagued by some terrible memory. Rey thinks of the onset of her heat, when she had been all alone in her hut. Perhaps this rut is the same for him - an unwanted, uncontrollable thing. She runs her hand down his chest, and his breathing slows. He covers her hand with his own. “It might be different...if I’m with you,” he says, more to himself than to her. “I think it’s meant to...to help me see you through your heat.”

“But you’ve…?” She tilts her head, confused. “You’ve done all this before? Haven’t you?”

“Never,” he says quietly.

“But the islanders. They wrote all sorts of stories,” Rey tells him. “About you...and their priestesses.”

“That wasn’t me,” he murmurs. “There is another god in this ocean.”

A chill passes through her body, from the back of her neck down to her spine. She thinks of his fear that she would not come to directly to him when her heat began. She thinks of the ancient texts, with their drawings of the two stars...the two islands. The two sea-gods.

“Another?”

“It was many, many years ago,” Kylo says, his eyes growing distant. “I was less powerful then...and he wanted this island for himself.”

“Is he still here?” she whispers. “The other god?”

“No. The islanders and I did battle with him, many ages ago. I sent him back to his island. To the northeast.”

“But he’s still _alive_?”

Kylo becomes very quiet.

“Yes," he answers finally. "He is the reason the islanders forbade their daughters from walking down to the water.”

She curls closer to him, listening to the waves lap at the sides of the cave. Her heart pounds a little, this newfound knowledge scaring her. The other island is not so far off. She has seen its peak on her walks - it is a smaller, craggy spit of land in the middle of the gray ocean. And how many times has she walked along the shoreline alone, casting her nets into the ocean? What if the other sea-god had found her before Kylo?

“Don’t be afraid, small one,” Kylo says, steadying her trembling form. He catches her mouth in a searing kiss, scattering all her fears. “I have watched over you, since the night I found you adrift in the ocean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still can't believe I'm writing this. 
> 
> Or more accurately, I can't believe I'm writing this when I have a half-finished chapter of my legitimate slow burn fic staring at me accusingly from the other tab.
> 
> I'm trusting everyone to tell me when I've taken these a/b/o dynamics too far. You would tell me...right?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Mind the tags. Lots of breeding/pregnancy/nesting imagery here.

Midday sunlight streams through the circular opening in the ceiling of the cave, bright as a yellow dandelion. Rey sighs contentedly, letting the warmth wrap around her as she dozes in and out, clinging to the fragments of a pleasant dream. When she stirs, heavy limbs close around her waist, preventing her from going anywhere. A blush rises on her cheeks as she slowly becomes more aware of her surroundings.

There is a tentacle inside of her, filling her cunt with constant, heavy pressure to keep her heat at bay while she slept. She bites her lip at the pleasant soreness between her legs, memories from the night before immediately flooding her mind. Kylo had mated her into the early hours of the morning, over and over again, until she’d finally fallen asleep with him still buried inside of her. Her womb throbs intently, engulfing the tentacle inside of her in a fresh wave of slick, as though her body somehow knows that despite the long hours of pleasure she received, no child will result from their union.

She wonders absently which of his tentacles is the knotted one that emits the pretty starlit fluid of his seed. Is it the one curled gently around her left breast? The one coiled around her thigh? Or is it the one that rests, heavy and thick, on her stomach?

In the daylight, they all look exactly the same: strong and scaled and black as writing ink. She closes her eyes, pretending that Kylo’s mating tentacle is the one already rooted deep inside of her. Her throat goes dry, heat pouring out of her as she shifts her hips. Clear slick gradually escapes her body, coating the scaled ridges of his tentacle and spreading across her inner thighs.

Her body is flush against him, his solid chest curving along her back. She can hear and feel the rhythmic rise and fall of his breathing. The walls of her pussy give a little flutter, clenching around the thick column, her mind still hazy with a combination of her heat and the remnants of sleep. She reaches between her thighs to stroke her clit with the pads of her fingers, no longer shocked or embarrassed at the fluid gathered there. It would be so easy to make herself come again, without even waking him up.

Her breathing becomes labored as she moves her fingertips back and forth over her clit. Inside her body, she feels his tentacle stir and throb in unconscious answer to her need. She looks down to find that the tentacle on her belly is swelling at the tip slightly, preparing to form its distinctive knot. The sea-god sleeps on, but Rey can smell him in the air, responding to her heat.

Except Kylo’s scent is different now. There is still the salt and driftwood she has come to associate with him. But there is another scent lurking underneath the surface, something potent and formidable that flows through the sea-god’s veins, a scent that Rey intuitively identifies as a male in the initial stages of his rut. It is the scent of burning embers, the scent of _magic_ \- it sends a shudder through her whole body - and she knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is dangerous, that she is no longer safe with him - he is going to hunt her, take her, drag her down into the cold depths -

Rey scrambles away in terror, fingernails digging into hard rock as she claws her way out of his many limbs. She feels the painful loss of him as his tentacle is torn from her body, but she doesn’t have time to lament it. Instinct takes over and she flees, stumbling naked towards the shoreline.

She dives into the water in a blind panic, striking out towards the mouth of the cave. There is a vertical band of light to show her the way, but deep inside, she knows she will never reach it.

Because some long-dormant part of her doesn’t _want_ to reach that golden promise of freedom. In the deepest crevices of her heart, she wants a male to chase her, catch her, and carry her back to…

Somewhere safe and sheltered, somewhere filled with her mate’s scent. She craves the darkness and the heat, craves the quiet and the solace - and above all else, she craves _him_.

Yet she can’t help but lead him in the chase. The rush of blood inside of her is not fear, as she had thought when she first scented him. It is the thrill of anticipation that makes her shiver, sweet as the current of cool water on her blazing skin. Her body burns at the thought of being pursued...hunted... _claimed_...

She is so close to the entrance now. A few more swift strokes and she will have escaped him forever. The prospect makes her heart race with concern that he will not reach her in time, but if she slows now, the chase will mean nothing. A male that cannot overtake her by his own power is not a worthy mate.

Her fingertips brush sunlight at the same moment that a strong grip closes around her ankle, dragging her with equal parts gentleness and violence back from the entrance. In an instant, Kylo’s tentacle wraps itself around her thigh and thrusts into the very core of her, pressing deeper and deeper inside her cunt until she is gloriously full.

Rey twists in the water, gasping for breath and hissing through her teeth. She kicks and writhes in a futile attempt to break his hold. Her nails scrape against hard scales and soft skin. Kylo restrains her, his tentacles coiling around her wrists and ankles like vines, and she bites down hard, teeth sinking into his flesh. The thick column inside of her is withdrawn harshly, only to be thrust once more into her slick channel, claiming her without words.

“Be still,” he commands, quiet authority flooding his voice.

Rey hums quietly in appreciation of her mate. Every muscle in her body loosens, her jaw unclenching until she is no longer biting him. Her tongue instinctively laves over his skin, licking and soothing the wound she has inflicted to the juncture between his neck and shoulder. There are tiny little droplets of starlight on his pale skin where her teeth have cut him.

 _Worthy_ , her mind tells her, a little ball of happiness settling in her chest. She tucks her head against the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of his rut: burning wood on a black sand beach. _He is worthy of you_.

“You’re mine,” he groans, setting a steady rhythm with the tendril currently buried in her core. She parts her thighs for him as he drives into her, nails digging into his shoulders as she writhes on his tentacle, but this time her movements are not an attempt to escape. “Mine to protect. Mine to mate. Mine to... _breed_.”

Kylo’s voice becomes low and rough when he arrives at the last word, as though it is sacred. He punctuates it with a victorious thrust. The hard nodules of his tentacle drag against the soft ridges inside of her, rubbing against a sensitive place on the front wall of her pussy. Rey tilts her head up and gives a hopeful little moan.

“You’d make such a pretty nest,” he whispers sweetly, covering her mouth with his. “A safe nest.”

 _Nest_ , her body hums in agreement as their tongues meet. Pure instinct courses through her, her entire world converging around that single word. _Nest, nest, nest!_

Kylo lowers his head to her breast, latching onto a rosy nipple. His tongue engulfs the hardened peak, sucking and pulling it with his teeth. The pleasure is so acute that it becomes painful. The tension inside her core builds with every stroke of his tentacle inside of her.

“Then give me your knot,” she gasps, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. Her cunt feels so terribly empty, even as he ruts into her. She pushes her fingers into his dark, wet hair, gripping it hard to keep him from leaving her breast. She rocks her hips against him, reaching between her thighs to touch her throbbing clit.

There is something very wrong. She doesn’t feel his scales flaring inside of her. His knot isn’t swelling to lock them together, and she hears herself beg for it, over and over again.

“Give me your knot,” she cries softly, her body unable to reach satisfaction without it. Her fingers are frantic on her clit. “I’m so empty, I need to feel it, I need to...”

_Build you a nest...find pieces of red coral and smooth them down, gather up pale sea-glass stones and arrange them in a shallow pool...cover them all in pretty sea grasses to make a soft ocean bed...and her mate will stand watch, guarding her as her body grows and changes, until her stomach swells and her hips widen and her cervix opens...and after the birth, they will wait together in the nest, protecting their unborn child until the time comes…_

She feels Kylo’s mating tentacle trail down her stomach. His knot presses into her lower belly. He kisses her softly.

“Mine to breed,” he says, to remind her of his claim. There is a protective look in his dark eyes. He grazes his fingertips along her cheek reverently. “When it is safe.”

“Now?” she whispers in anticipation.

“No.”

She grits her teeth, hazel eyes flashing with frustration at his refusal.

“ _Now_ ,” she demands impatiently, fingers leaving her clit to reach for his knot. Her hand closes around it and the scales flare, releasing a small amount of the bioluminescent fluid into the water through her fingers. “I want your knot now.”

It is only after she has spoken that Rey realizes how unwise she was to challenge him in the midst of his rut. The sea-god’s jaw clenches and his gaze darkens in disappointment. Kylo rips his mating tentacle from her hand. A moment later, she feels the slow drag of the other tendril against her inner walls as he withdraws from her entirely. The emptiness that follows hurts unlike anything she has ever felt. Without him filling her up, copious slick pulses from her entrance, mingling with the water. He makes no move to take her again.

“No,” he says again, his eyes hard as stone.

The word sends a shiver through her, the disapproval in his tone obvious.

 _Your mate refuses to knot you, he is displeased_... _not good enough, not worthy to be a mother...must be good for him, be better…_

Rey blinks in confusion, opening her thighs a little wider in invitation. She pushes her hips down against him, rubbing her folds along his scales in search of stimulation, but Kylo’s hands close around waist and still her movements.

“ _No_.”

He places his knotted tentacle on her belly again. It is obvious that he can smell her slick, and is not unaffected by it, because the end of the mating tentacle has swollen so that it is bulbous and hard against her soft stomach.

A tiny whimper escapes her throat, needy and desperate. All he would have to do is move his mating tentacle down between her thighs, and push it past her folds to where she is already soaked and ready for him. She knows that his knot would stretch her so perfectly as he sinks it into her cunt, rooting it deep inside of her.

She licks her lips, tasting the salt of the ocean. There is a word that is made for him, a very ancient, very powerful word that scratches at the back of her throat. If she knew it, she feels certain that she could convince him to knot her, but it is just out of her reach.

“No?” she whispers instead.

“No,” he repeats firmly. It is the final decision of her mate. She can no longer demand his knot. To insist after he has refused so clearly would displease him. And she very much wants to please him.

Stubborn tears sting her eyes.

“It hurts,” she pleads with him, her fingers moving down her stomach to slip through her folds. She thrusts them inside of her, trying in vain to quiet her heat. “I need to be knotted...it _hurts_ …”

Rey feels the sea-god lift her from the water, setting her gently on the shoreline. She lies back, canting her hips up and curling her fingers deep inside in a useless attempt to make herself come.

A tentacle wraps around her wrist, pulling her hand away. She looks down at Kylo, aching for release, only to find that the sea-god is hovering inches away from her center. His eyes survey her pink folds, the little nub of her clit, and the slick flowing from her entrance.

The sea-god bows his head, pressing a tiny kiss to her clit that makes her back arch off of the rock. A pathetic whimper leaves her.

“On your hands and knees, small one.”

Her mind goes blank at his command, delivered in that deep voice that bends every part of her to his will. She distantly remembers kneeling at the edge of the circular entrance in the ceiling of his cave, her hands and knees damp from the vines that lead down into the darkness. Her womb contracts as she remembers how badly she wanted him to take her in that position, when her heat had been new and painful to her.

She turns over, shakily crawling onto her hands and knees. Her core throbs and clenches as she spreads her legs to show him the slick trickling from her entrance down her right thigh.

Rey hears the disturbance in the water as Kylo rises to meet her. His hand trails down her spine soothingly. As if by his will, every part of her relaxes. She collapses down onto her forearms with a soft moan, her thighs shaking as she pushes her hips up and back.

“I will give you everything you need,” he says, his voice gentle. Two of his thick tentacles force her legs even wider apart. His fingers brush her backside, before he grazes his knuckles along her spine. It is nothing more than the whisper of the wind against her skin, the lightness of his touch not nearly enough to satisfy her. “My mate...my pretty mate…”

Rey shivers as she feels one of his tentacles drag through her folds, the tip of it breaching her slowly. She sighs in disappointment and acceptance when she feels the tapered end gradually thicken, until it is seated fully in her cunt.

“I won’t knot you yet, Rey,” he murmurs, his fingers trailing back down her spine before brushing along the cleft of her ass. She gasps as he lightly touches the tight ring of muscle where she has never dared to touch herself. “But if you let me, I will fill every part of you.”

“You can’t,” she whispers, shame piercing through her heat to flood her belly. She had teased him with the prospect of taking her this way before, but now her whole body tenses at the prospect of accepting his finger into her asshole. “You shouldn’t…”

“You said you wanted me inside of you everywhere, small one,” he reminds her, gathering slick from her entrance and spreading it over her puckered hole. His voice lowers as he continues. “I want to know every part of you, Rey. I can make you feel so full - almost as full as if I’d knotted you.”

 _Listen to your mate_ , her body sings. _Your mate knows how to take care of you._

Rey moans as he continues lightly exploring the delicate ring of muscle, collecting more slick from her pussy, only to return to trace the place she has now forbidden him from entering. She clenches the hole tight without thinking, and hears his deep groan when he feels her tensing under his finger.

“Let me have you here,” he rasps, his fingers slick and prepared to enter her. She can’t tell whether it is a plea...or a command. Perhaps it is both. “Let me touch you.”

Taken by his rut, he starts thrusting his tentacle involuntarily into her cunt, seeking his release in the only way she will allow. Rey closes her eyes, her arousal nearly painful. Her breasts ache and her clit throbs at the prospect of being filled so completely.  

“Slowly,” she whispers. “Just the one.”

Kylo does as she asks, initiating her with a single finger. There is a moment of pressure as the digit meets the resistance of her muscle, before sliding easily into her. The feeling of being touched inside her ass for the first time is unsettling. Her eyes go wide when she realizes that Kylo has breached her with his thumb. She is struck by a sense of complete vulnerability as his his palm and four other fingers splay heavily against the small of her back.

“You’re so tight,” Kylo says reverently, his voice strained as his tentacle starts to move inside her cunt again. He drags it out to the tip and thrusts it back in. Rey gasps at the sudden feeling of being too full, impaled on both his tentacle and his thumb. “I can’t tell you how beautiful it was to watch you open for me there.”

“I’ve never...” she chokes out, startled at how it hadn’t hurt in the slightest. Now that his thumb is resting comfortably inside of her, she finds that her body doesn’t seem to want to let go of him. The sensation of his tentacle thrusting inside her core is heightened by the weight in her ass. Within a few moments, she is close again. “It feels so…”

He slowly pulls his thumb back, circling her entrance, then presses it deep into her again. She cries out, tightening around the complete intrusion.

“Are you hurt, small one?” he murmurs, halting his movements.

“No,” she gasps frantically, tilting her hips up desperately. “No, please, I want...more. Another.”

He speaks soft reassurances to her as he removes his thumb, gathering more slick from her entrance. The next time he pushes into her, it is with two thick fingers - his middle and forefinger. Discomfort lances through her, burned away a moment later by her heat.

“So full…” she says breathlessly, stunned at how right it feels. He belongs inside her, filling her everywhere. She’d known it the moment she saw his mosaic in the temple. “You feel so good…don’t stop, please...”

He keeps her on the edge for what feels like hours, until the slick is dripping down her thighs and there are tears on her cheeks. Her shoulders ache, her knees and forearms ache, her cheek aches from where it is pressed against cold stone...but he is stretching her so exquisitely with his fingers, claiming every part of her so thoroughly, as though he knows what she needs before she can think to beg him for it. Every drag of him against her inner walls leaves her shaking. Her sharp cries and the sound of his unyielding thrusts fill the cave, echoing on the jagged stone walls.

“Trust me,” Kylo breathes, and she feels him press a third finger against her ass. She nods her assent, unable to speak, and feels him push the finger - slick with her own fluids - slowly in alongside the others, knuckle by knuckle, until it feels like she cannot possibly hold them all.

Pleasure bursts along her spine, inside her belly, every part of her tightening around the fullness inside of her. It goes on for several long minutes, in which Kylo is relentless, curving and twisting his tentacle deep inside of her to prolong her pleasure. When it becomes too much, the first orgasm fading and blending into a second, she closes her thighs tightly and cries out for him to stop. Only then does he gather her to him, holding her with her back to his chest.

It takes her a long time to come down. His tentacles touch her outer thighs soothingly, coaxing them open so that he can leave her without causing her pain. She bites her lip hard as he gently removes his fingers from her ass. It is a heady reminder of just how large he is. She stares at his hands for a long time, her little hole throbbing from being stretched.

How could he possibly have fit three of those fingers inside of her? How could she have _begged_ him for it?

“You didn’t come?” she questions drowsily, her voice scratchy from screaming.

“I did,” he murmurs, taking her hand and leading it to her inner thigh. She looks down at her fingers, finding them stained with a mixture of her slick and his blue-white essence.

She hadn’t even noticed, so consumed by her own pleasure.

“But I didn’t touch you,” she replies faintly, wondering if he’d taken himself in hand.

Kylo sighs against her hair. “You didn’t need to. I came the moment I watched you open for the last of my fingers.”

“You liked touching me there?” Rey asks shyly, running her fingers over the vulnerable underside of the tentacle nearest her. In answer to her question, Kylo shifts her so that she is lying on her back, drawing her thighs together and rutting his mating tentacle between their apex.

“I did.”

Rey stares down at the broadening tip of his mating tentacle as the scales flare and it swells again. Recalling that he had come several times when she’d pleasured him with her mouth, she realizes that he is not yet spent. The repeated surging of the thick tendril through her folds stimulates her clit with every pass. The knot disappears, then peeks through her thighs again. Rey lets out a tiny sigh, looking up at her powerful mate. She’s exhausted, too tired to come again, but the feel of his knot so close to where she wants it makes her shift her hips and rub her thighs together.

“I liked it, too,” she confesses, parting her thighs and reaching between them to stroke his tentacle. Her fingers pass over hard scales and the heavy weight of his knot. Kylo shouts into the cave, closing his eyes as his knot flares, spilling ropes of water and light onto her stomach.

 

* * *

 

They kiss in the quiet moments before her heat takes her again, drifting together in the shallow water. Rey loves the taste of him. She loves the gentle swipes of his tongue against hers. It is like mating, but softer and less urgent.

“Why won’t you knot me?” she whispers hesitantly.

The sea-god’s dark eyes survey her. An errant tentacle tenderly brushes against her cheek.

“Is it me?” she asks weakly, her voice swallowed by the lofty cavern. “Is it something I did?”

“No,” he says instantly. Tendrils curl possessively around her waist and thighs, as if to draw her in closer. “You’ve done nothing wrong, small one. I am very pleased with you.”

Her heart beats a little faster.

“I know you want to knot me,” she presses, emboldened by his reassurance. “I can feel how badly you need it. Every hour your rut grows stronger…”

He looks pained by her words.

“I’ll help you,” Rey breathes. “I’ll be so good for you, I promise. I could take your knot, as many times as you need…”

“Don’t tempt me, Rey,” Kylo replies sharply, but beneath the harshness of his tone, sadness creeps into his voice. “It isn’t safe for you. If I were to knot you now, during your heat…”

He trails off, but she follows his meaning. The heat is changing her body, readying it to carry a child. If Kylo knots her now, she will surely conceive. The very thought excites her.

“It’s not safe because of the other god?”

Kylo’s eyes reflect the dimming light. Dusk is falling upon the ocean. Rey can see the concern and protectiveness in his gaze. She wonders whether his instinct to keep her safe will be more powerful than the instinct to breed her, even when his rut overtakes him completely.

“If he learns of you, he will try to take you from me. It is a concern that is never far from my mind,” Kylo says finally. Water drips from his long, dark hair, the droplets tracing little rivers on the pale skin of his chest. “But right now, it is your people that I fear most.”

It feels as though a heavy stone has dropped into her stomach. It is not the answer she had expected.

“My people?” she repeats.

“When your heat is over, you will return to them,” Kylo explains. “And if they discovered you carrying my child - _our_ child - they would not accept you. They would hate the life that grows within you - and they might try to destroy it, as the islanders killed the immortal children who lived under the island long ago.”

“The nuns are harmless,” Rey tells him, nearly laughing at the thought of the pious women trying to take her from her mate. She can just picture their sallow faces as they whisper to each other, scandalized by the wild girl who took a sea-god for her lover and bore his immortal children. She couldn’t care less what they think of her. “And Luke is just an old fisherman.”

“That man is no mere fisherman,” Kylo says, his reflective eyes flashing. “He is a hunter.”

“A hunter?” Rey murmurs, her brow furrowing.

“There are whispers among the spirits that he is a slayer of immortals, descended from a great lineage of spirit-hunters. He has traveled the world and is learned in ancient histories. When he first came to the island, many years ago, I thought the hunters were mere myths. Until he found me.”

“You fought with him?”

“He believed that I was the sea-god who took the daughters of the islanders captive,” Kylo murmurs darkly. “The coward hunted me down and tried to kill me in my sleep. It was I who dragged his ship below the water.”

Rey’s eyes widen, recalling the skiff she had seen in the shallow cove on the southernmost side of the island. Possessive anger fills her veins at the thought that Luke, the grumpy old seaman who taught her to weave nets and cook bird stew, has lied to her all this time. Scalding fury builds in her chest as she realizes that he had nearly stolen her mate from her.

But another kind of heat blazes through her at the knowledge that Kylo had faced a hunter and survived. Her mind’s eye conjures images of his black tentacles wrapped around a tall, slender skiff, the creaking and groaning of splitting wood, and the rending of sails. She cannot imagine the strength required to drag a ship below the water.

Her core gives a painful throb as her body prepares to take her mate again. Slick pulses from her, her tight channel clenching around emptiness. Kylo looks at her, amusement dancing in his eyes as he catches her scent and realizes how his story has affected her. Two tentacles rise from the water to cover her breasts, engulfing her nipples in tight pressure.

“Luke is an old man now,” she replies, trying to keep her wits about her. If she can just convince Kylo that they aren’t in danger, perhaps he will finally knot her. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Kylo swipes a droplet of water from her cheek with his thumb.

“But he could hurt _you_ , small one.”

 

* * *

 

Rey is grateful that she allowed Kylo to explore her slowly with his fingers, preparing every part of her body to receive him. For when his rut sets in fully, he is not a patient creature.

He is ravenous, licking her slick straight from the source, watching her tremble whenever his tongue finds her clit. He mates with her so often and so fiercely that Rey is helpless to do anything other than to lie still and accept him. She allows him to restrain her, to arrange her in whatever position most pleases him. They mate in the deep water, on the rocks, and near smooth wall at the back of the cave where the stone is semi-reflective like a mirror. Kylo instructs her to watch as he simultaneously claims her mouth and cunt. Their shadowy doubles merge and join together, a constant barrage of filthy praise falling from his lips.

_Do you know how tight and wet you are, small one? Your slick is so sweet...that’s it, open up for me, take it all...Look at how pretty you are, restrained and begging for me...You’re being so good, taking me so deep..._

Rey is not patient either. Her heat rises to meet his rut, her world narrowing around a singular desire to please her mate. She craves the taste of his come in her mouth and aches for the pressure of his tentacles inside her body.

One night, when the starlight falls in a silvery column through the ceiling of the cave, she begs for him to press the tapered tip of his tentacle into her asshole. He claims her in every way, using a pair of tentacles in alternating thrusts between her two holes in a way that leaves her breathless. His rut makes him sensitive, so sensitive that he comes easily whenever her fingers close around his knot, and she delights in his deep groans when he spends on her.

There are times when he neglects her nipples and clit - sometimes because he is too focused on the warm heat of her cunt, and other times because he is denying her release on purpose - and she must bite him to get his attention. Kylo laughs at the sting of her teeth, then obliges her by laving her dusky nipples with his tongue and rubbing the nodules that adorn the underside of his tentacles against the sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs.

Delirious with her heat, she begs him to knot her over and over again, but he always spills himself on her skin or in her mouth or in the water. Just once, driven by his rut, he tries to fit his knot in her ass, but she is far too tight to admit him. She whimpers and struggles when the knot meets resistance, unable to fit past the tight ring of muscle at her entrance. It is something they do not try again.

Rey is not certain whether it is her heat or his rut that fades first, but their joining becomes less frantic on the morning of the fifth day. Kylo takes his time with her, curling a tentacle deep inside to explore the soft ridges of her pussy until she is breathless and trembling. When it is over, he murmurs words of adoration and promises of protection, showering whisper-light kisses upon her shoulders, her sore nipples, and the delicate folds between her thighs. The scalding heat inside of her diminishes, a blazing fire reduced to ashes.

She sleeps. She hungers. She thirsts.

When evening falls, Rey lets her hair dry and pulls it into three neat buns. She dons her nightshirt and boots, the fabric feeling too scratchy against her overly sensitive skin. Kylo carries her in his arms out of the cave, tucked against his broad chest, to keep the waves from touching her.

Rey kisses him on the shoreline, her heart aching and happy all at once. Then she forces herself to climb the long, winding stairs to her hut. She drinks her canteen dry, then builds a small fire in the stone pit and crawls into her little bed, nestling under the covers, every part of her sore and satisfied.

 _Sleep tonight,_ she thinks, her mind and body giving into exhaustion. _You can worry about the hunter tomorrow._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I update this I feel the need to apologize for how filthy it is...*hides face in hands*

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to have more of this completed for MerMay, but life interfered, and I figured I'd share this anyways. I have several thousand more words written, which I might clean up and add (if I'm even brave enough to actually post the more explicit scenes).


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